ZMLS's Ten Year Anniversary Special
by Zim'sMostLoyalServant
Summary: To celebrate ten years of me on this site, have a collection of ten oneshots and drabbles. Complete.
1. Ten Back

**A/N: Hello, one and all! Welcome, to this very special collection of stories.**

 **Earlier this year, one of my favorite authors on this site, E350, celebrated the publication of his 50th story here on FFN. That got me thinking about milestones, and it suddenly hit me — I've been active on this site for exactly 10 years myself. True, I didn't start publishing fics until '08, but I created my account and began reviewing and faving in '07. And now, along comes my decade anniversary. Where does the time go?**

 **Anyway, I decided I just had to do something special to celebrate. So, here you go — a collection of 10 oneshots, drabbles, and ficlets, some of which probably could have stood on their own, but are being grouped together here for the sake of the celebration. Hope you all enjoy them.**

 **First up, a little tale of time travel, in which I address a popular bit of semi-canon fanon that I've never used in my fics before.**

 **Read on!**

 **Disclaimer: Why I still have to say this after 10 years, I don't know. But I'll say it again, I do not own Invader Zim or any related characters.**

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 **Zim'sMostLoyalServant's Ten Year Anniversary Special**

 **Entry 1: Ten Back**

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It was another average day at the Membrane household. Which is to say that Professor Membrane wasn't anywhere near the property, except in the sense that he had a few hover-screens with prerecorded messages floating around the house. Meanwhile, Gaz was in her room, sitting in front of a row of computer screens, 110% focused on her latest online game tournament. And Dib was in his own room, pouring over his latest paranormal discovery.

This is where our story begins.

Dib was seated at his desk, surrounded by ancient tomes, his computer opened to the Swollen Eyeball Network's online archive to help cross-reference and double-check any information he was able to pull from the books. And sitting there, in the middle of the desk and holding all of Dib's attention, was the object he was so carefully studying. It was a large, antique clock, all dark wood and dulled bronze, liberally covered with carved and etched runes and symbols from a forgotten language.

This was the Tempus Fugit Clock, a rather on-the-nose named object of great and mysterious power. With emphasis on the "mysterious" part — seemingly all anyone could agree on was that it _had_ some kind of power. It was just that no one could agree on _what_. As such, it had bounced around the paranormal community for years, being studied and researched by one group or another, without anything to show for it.

At some point in the last decade or so, it had ended up in the SEN's hands, locked away in some storage warehouse somewhere. And then, a few days ago, Dib had stumbled upon it while going over the SEN's inventory, looking for anything that might give him a leg up against Zim. Of course, he had no idea what the Clock did, and if it actually could help him in any way, but he figured that the only way to know for sure was to try.

So, he'd requisitioned possession of the Clock and any research materials the Network had on it, and surprisingly had got it all without any trouble. Though Dib supposed that the other Agents were probably just humoring him, not really expecting him to have any success where everyone else had failed. Well, he'd show them! He'd figure out what the Clock did and how to use it, and even if it didn't help against Zim, he was sure it'd still be a major breakthrough in paranormal studies.

"Now if I could just figure out these damn symbols!" he muttered angrily, tapping a pencil angrily against a sheet of paper covered in failed translations of the runes covering the Clock, as he glared at the timepiece itself, which almost seemed to be staring mockingly back at him.

"Come on, I've checked every language known to ancient man _and_ run them all through every cipher I could find," he complained out loud, tossing the pencil away in frustration, "Why can't I figure out what these things say?"

Groaning, Dib planted his face on the desk for a moment, before shifting slightly to support it on his clasped hands as he stared at the Clock.

"Seriously, what is your deal?" he asked aloud, "Are you just a weird decorative piece people like telling stories about? I mean, I guess that makes sense — all anyone seems to know is that you have magic of some kind, but that's all they say. That could mean people are just trying to get attention, and some money, for the story… damn it, that would just be my luck, wouldn't it? Wasting time on a fake."

Huffing a breath, Dib reached out with one hand and absently flicked one of the Clock's hands. To his surprise, rather than moving an inch or two in reaction, it actually began spinning at significant speed, soon joined by the other hand, which started moving on its own. And as they kept moving and picking up speed, they began glowing with an ethereal light, which soon consumed the entire Clock.

"Whoa," Dib breathed in awe at the display. However, as the glow intensified and the Clock began levitating, a wind emerging from nowhere to blow away everything around it, his interpretation of what was happening from shifted "very cool" to "probably dangerous". As such, he jumped up out of his chair and turned to run towards the door.

But he never made it, as seconds later, the glow intensified with a burst, and a spinning portal of light appeared over the Clock's face. Air began rushing into the portal in a vortex, with enough force to pull Dib off his feet. He grabbed ahold of the carpet as best he could in a desperate bid to stop himself from being sucked in. However, this only held for a moment, before the carpeting tore apart in Dib's hands, and flew through the air with a scream, which trailed off as he disappeared into the portal with another flash of light.

Dib found himself tumbling head over heels through a tunnel of kaleidoscopic light, unable to tell which way was up. With everything happening so fast, his mind couldn't even try to decipher what was happening to him, too consumed by panic as it was.

And then it all ended as quickly as it began, Dib being expelled from the light tunnel and slamming into a hard surface. Groaning as he picked himself up, Dib dusted himself off and looked around. And he blinked in surprise as he realized that he recognized his surroundings as a street corner not too far his house. He recognized the surroundings as easily as he would his reflection — every house on one side of the street, every storefront on the other, and all he'd have to do was turn a little to one side to see Gaz's favorite Bloaty's…

"What the?" Dib asked, blinking in surprise as he turned, only to be greeted not by the sight of the pig-themed pizza restaurant, but a vacant lot, surrounded by construction equipment. Plastered along one plaster wall barricade was a banner featuring Bloaty's head, along with a message that read "New Bloaty's, Coming Soon Near You!"

Now, Dib had plenty of experience with the paranormal and supernatural for someone as young as him, and had seen his fair share of movies and TV. As such, he had more than enough genre savvy to quickly realize just what happened to him. After all, there was only one reason for a vacant lot where there'd been a Bloaty's for as long as he could remember.

"You've gotta be kidding me," he said facepalming, "I got sent back in time? Of all the powers for a magic clock to have, it's that? That's so freaking cliche!"

Taking a deep breath to calm his quickly growing panic, Dib rubbed his forehead and analyzed the situation. If he really had been sent back in time, the first thing he'd need to do is figure out how far back. Then he could worry about finding a way to get back to where he belonged.

Spying a nearby newsstand, Dib rushed over to it, grabbing a newspaper off of a stack. Not bothering to read the articles or even the headlines, Dib scanned the paper for the date. Spotting it, he saw that it read as ten years — almost exactly to the day, actually — behind what he knew it was in his present.

Hmm, so, it wasn't before he was born, at least. But that meant there was a one-year-old version of him running around somewhere, which was just weird to think.

"Hey, kid, are you going to buy that paper or not?" the newsstand operator demanded gruffly. Dib jumped a bit in surprise at that, having been too engrossed in the situation to notice the man.

"Er, no, sorry," he said, putting the paper back, "I, uh, just needed to check something."

With that, Dib ran off, mind running even faster than his legs as he tried to determine what he was supposed to do now. As tempting as it was to consider, he knew he couldn't do anything to directly alter the past — the risk of a paradox was too great, and he didn't want to be the one responsible for tearing open the spacetime continuum and creating a world ruled by apes, or a nuclear war, or something. So, he had to find a way back to his time, and quickly, before he stepped on the wrong butterfly.

The question was, how? The Clock hadn't come back with him, and he had no idea where it was now, as the records only showed it coming into the SEN's possession less than five years before he found out about it. That meant he would need to find another way to get back to his time.

That really only left one option. And he'd have to be extra careful pursuing it, as that option was seeking aid from his father. And, again, that carried the risk of discovery and a paradox, so he couldn't confront his father directly for help. Not that the Professor would believe him anyway, if he told him who he was — while he _might_ believe in time travel being possible due to "real science", he'd probably want to know exactly how Dib had performed the act, and would therefore dismiss Dib out of hand as soon as he heard about the magic clock.

"I guess I'll just have to sneak into his lab and find something on my own," Dib concluded as he paused for a moment, before changing direction with a purpose, "And it'll have to be his home lab in the basement, because there's no way I'll get into his main one."

A few minutes more of running, and Dib came to halt in front of his house. It didn't look all that different from how it did in his time, down to the electric fence, and even the same shade of paint on its walls. Looking around to make sure no one was watching him, Dib walked around to the back of the house of jumped the fence, landing in the backyard. Walking towards the back door, he stopped and eyed the keypad next to it, red light indicating that it was locked. Saying a quick prayer that his father hadn't changed the password sometime in the past decade, Dib reached out and typed in "S-C-I-E-N-C-E".

Yea, the smartest man in the world used something as simple as "Science" as his password. The irony was not lost on Dib, especially not as the light flicked green, and the door unlocked with a click, indicating that Membrane would indeed still be using the same password ten years from now.

Slipping quietly into the house, Dib was sure to move as stealthily as he could, just on the off chance his father was home. Soon, he made his way into the basement, and was looking around the lab for anything that he could put to use getting himself back to the present.

"Okay, so the layout's a little different than what I'm used to," he commented, looking over the various machines and boxes filling the lab space, "But there has to be something here… Huh, what's that?"

The sight that caught Dib's attention was a large glass tube standing upright in the middle of the room. It was filled with fluid of some kind, with a shape floating within it, obscured by the condensation coating the tube's surface. Curiosity getting the better of him, Dib carefully approached the tube and gently rubbed away some of the clinging moisture, creating a patch he could see clearly through. Peering through it, he was shocked to see a baby — no, a near-totally developed fetus — floating within, an artificial umbilical cord connecting it to machinery in the top of the tube.

"What the hell?" he muttered. Why did his father have a baby in a jar in his lab?

Looking around for some kind of explanation as to what this all was, Dib saw a computer terminal nearby, hooked up to the tube. Walking over to it, he was relieved to see it wasn't locked, and he was able to pull up the information it contained.

 _Project: Continuance, Phase 2. Log Entry 90_

 _New subject continues to grow safely at slightly accelerated rate. Full gestation and subsequent "birth" should be completed within the next two months._

 _So far, the choice to alter my genetic sample in this subject to make it female does not appear to be affecting its development. If all things continue as they are, I believe it is safe to assume that this "daughter" subject will indeed serve as an equal balance to my first "son" offspring…_

"Wait, what?!" Dib exclaimed, eyes bugging out as he read that last line. What did that… it couldn't be, could it? Dreading what he'd find, but feeling a desperate need to confirm or deny his sudden fears, Dib scrolled back through the files until he found the first entry.

 _Project: Continuance, Phase 2. Log Entry 1_

 _After much consideration since the conclusion of the first stages of this project, I have decided to create another offspring._

 _My reasons for this are several. For one, I cannot be said to have fully explored the limits of my ability to create life until I have done so with both genders, which is why I intend to alter my genetic sample with this new subject to render it female._

 _The more prominent reason, however, is that my first subject does not appear to be developing either physically or mentally at the proper rate. As such, grooming a replacement seems a logical precaution, should things not pick up._

 _Some might say I am reacting too harshly, given that Subject 1's development is normal for the average human infant. However, he should not be average. It is a matter of record that I was already solving advanced mathematical equations with my building blocks when I was only six months old. As such, any offspring of mine should be just as intelligent. Even more so in this case, given that rather than being a mix of my genes and some woman who may or may not have an equally high IQ, my "son" is created purely from my DNA…_

Dib could only stare mutely in shock at the screen. He was a clone? A test tube baby? No, that couldn't be. Sure, he'd always known that his and Gaz's mother had died when they were little, but she'd _existed_ … hadn't she? Come to think of it, Dib suddenly realized with cold certainty, he didn't think he'd ever seen a picture of his mother, or heard her name, or even heard his father mention her. He'd just assumed her existence, because obviously, he had to have had a mother, right?

But, no, apparently not. He was just an experiment, a vanity project his "father" had cooked up just because he wanted a perfect child. Which, Dib mused with dark humor, at least explained why Membrane was always so disappointed in him — he probably couldn't understand why someone created directly from his own genes could be so obsessed with "fake science".

He was suddenly pulled from his shock as he heard the basement door open, and the sound of footsteps walking down the stairs. Panicking, Dib bolted towards a corner and hid himself behind some equipment, just as his father entered the lab. As the Professor inspected the tube containing what Dib belatedly realized had to be Gaz, he knew he had to get out of here quickly, before he was discovered.

Quickly scanning his surroundings, Dib spotted an air vent just within continued hiding distance. Crawling over to it and removing the cover as quietly as he could, he entered the vent and began crawling through it, making his way up, figuring he could make his way back up to the surface level and get out; he could always come back once he was sure his father had left, but just staying in the house with him was a risk.

Unfortunately, that didn't prove to be as easy as the movies made it seem. First of all, the vents were cramped, and hard to move through. Secondly, he could even tell which way he was heading. So, when he finally saw another covering, he didn't hesitate to kick it out and fall out into the next room, desperate for some breathing space.

Looking around, Dib was surprised to see himself back in what he was sure was his room, albeit bare of all the personal touches he'd added over the years. In fact, all there was in there, was a crib.

Eyes wide as he realized what he was looking at, Dib hesitantly walked over to the crib, and looked down at himself. His infant self was laying in the bed, swathed in blue clothes and blankets, sleeping somewhat fitfully. Dib could only stare, emotions mixed.

"Wow, this is weird," he muttered, "Of course, not as weird as finding out you're a science experiment. Heh, you're lucky, Mini-Me — you still have ten whole years before you find that out. Mind you, they're ten years of being mocked and made fun of for everything you believe in, but that's not so bad compared to this."

Dib's voice must have grown too harsh as he said this, because Baby Dib suddenly woke from the tone, and started crying.

"Oh, nononono, please stop," Dib begged, "Please, you'll bring Dad up here… um, hey, look at this!"

Doing the first thing that came to mind, Dib whipped out his phone and brought up his pictures of Zim, and Bigfoot, and any other paranormal things he'd come across.

"Look, aliens!" Dib said, holding the phone where Baby Dib could see. Surprisingly, that stopped the crying, as the infant blinked and looked up at the screen, the light having fully absorbed his attention.

"Allleeennns," the baby gurgled happily, trying to repeat the word. The cuteness of that caused Dib to smile, despite himself.

Maybe it was the innocence in his younger self's eyes. Or maybe it was just the chance being given to his brain to allow it to slow down and back away from the shock, letting him think things over. But suddenly, his recent revelation didn't seem so overwhelming.

So what if he was created, not born? He was still him, wasn't he? It didn't change what he was like, what he did, or how he saw the world, so he shouldn't treat it like the end of everything he knew.

Just as that thought passed his mind, there was a flash of light, and a feeling of being pulled in every direction at once. When his vision cleared, Dib saw that he was back in his room — as in, his modern day room, everything back where he knew it should be, and the Tempus Fugit Clock sitting on his desk, not glowing but still seeming to stare at him.

Dib blinked as he tried to process what had just happened. Clearly, the Clock had brought him back to when it sent him from, of its own volition. But why? Why send him back in time only to suddenly bring him back?

"Did I somehow _need_ to know about how my dad created me, and that's why you showed me all that?" Dib muttered, before glancing at the phone still in his hand, "Or was I fulfilling a time loop, inspiring my younger self to have a love of the paranormal?"

Then he frowned as another thought occurred to him.

"Or were you just messing with me? You were, weren't you, you little piece of magical-"

"Dib! Keep it down in there!" Gaz yelled from her own room, voice cutting through both shut doors in her way and causing Dib to jump.

"Right, sorry!" he called back. Shaking his head to clear it, Dib put his phone away and, after a moment of hesitation, started packing up the Clock and all his research materials. After what had just happened, he didn't want anything more to do with it.

And so, like so many before him, Dib Membrane experienced the power of the Tempus Fugit Clock and, underwhelmed and disappointed by its power, sent it away. He'd remain aware of its abilities, but would never properly speak of them again.

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 **The End**

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 **A/N: Sorry for just ending it like that. But I'm not that good at all that deep, introspective stuff, so I just skipped over most of the stuff I originally planned with Dib's interactions with his younger self.**

 **Hope you don't all mind the poor quality. I promise the other entries in this collection will be better.**


	2. Retrospective

**A/N: This here is a list of my own personal critique of all the stories I've posted here on FFN over the last 10 years. Prepare for a bit of self-bashing.**

 **Disclaimer: …Do I need one for something like this? Eh, well, just in case. I don't own Invader Zim or any related characters. I do own the stories listed below, and any OCs listed therein (unless otherwise specified).**

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 **Entry 2: A Retrospective**

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First, an honorable mention to a story no longer present here on FFN:

 **Young Frankenstein The Toon Musical:** My first and only foray into the fanmake category, based on the most recent Broadway show I had seen at the time. In hindsight, I wonder why I even bothered — it was a pain in the ass to transcribe the song lyrics, I couldn't remember half the dialogue of the show, and I realize now that most of my character choices didn't really work for their roles. Honestly, I'm not all that upset that the site moderators ultimately chose to delete this hot mess.

Now then, moving on to my stories that are still actually around:

 **The Puppet Master:** My very first story, and one that will thus always have a special place in my heart. Also my only First Person POV story; it just never came up again. Looking back, the story is very simple compared to my later stuff, but given it was only ever meant as a setup to Reckoning, I think I did pretty well. And if nothing else, Prime is still one of my favorite OC villains, and I think I did a good job establishing him here.

 **Mission Possible:** My sole Doctor Who story, written back when I was still trying to not write solely in a single fandom. This one in particular was a response to an open challenge by The Chibis Are Stalking Me to take any of the entries in their oneshot collection and expand them into full stories. One, involving Lucy Saxon carrying out a backup plan to resurrect the Master, spoke to me… and then midway through writing it, I just completely lost interest in it. I don't know why, but my muse for it just withered up. Probably for the best, though — I've since learned I'm not that good at writing romance.

 **Gaz's Nightmare:** My very first anti-Gaz story. For starting off such a long running common theme in my work, it's pretty basic. But, I was still coming into my writing skills at the time, so I think that can be forgiven, really.

 **Dark Love:** Another one of my rare non-IZ related works, this one being one of two in Bionicle, which was something I was really into at the time. And, in a testament to both my preference for villains over heroes and my naïveté regarding my ability to write romance, I decided to ship my two favorite villains from this franchise, Makuta Teridax and Roodaka. On the one hand, I'm pretty sure I was the first person to write this pairing, at least on FFN. On the other, it really isn't that well written — the romance is rushed, and I'm pretty sure both are pretty OOC. But on the upside, I think I fit some decent humor in there, so it's not a total loss.

 **Gaz Goes to Hell:** …Oh my God, why did I write this, this is torture porn, WTF is wrong with me?!

 **Reckoning:** My first major story. I learned a lot from this one, mostly on how difficult it is to know when to end a chapter, and how not to spoil cliffhangers and foreshadowing in the A/Ns, which I regrettably kept doing. On a more positive note, I realized with this story that I'm pretty good at writing action scenes, and have tried to get even better at it ever since. However, that can't overcome how everyone's characterizations seemed to degrade into OOC territory a bit over the course of the story. And of course, I felt the need to add a sequel hook, despite the fact that I've never gotten around to even plotting one out, which is like making a promise you know you can't keep.

 **Gaz's Nightmare: Rewrite:** I think this was a lot better than the original version. Everyone seemed to like the "dream within a dream" aspect of it, and the minor bit of karma at the end. Though even then, I realized the "public nudity" part was a cliched thing to stick in a nightmare sequence.

 **A Promise Kept:** The sequel to Dark Love that nobody asked for. Honestly don't know why I wrote this; I'm sure I knew even then that I was bad at romance. Yet I did it anyway, continuing the OOC attitudes, just barely balanced by a bit of action I threw in as well.

 **Birthdays:** My first IZ oneshot not to be an anti-Gaz one. Really just a vanity project to let people know when my birthday was, in case in the future my onsite friends wanted to write gifts for me (like I said, vanity). Ended up being a lot more morose than I originally intended.

 **Karma Circle: Abduction:** My first anti-Gaz story to be a direct homage to all of Dibsthe1's excellent work. Also the only one to have multiple chapters. Aside from feeling like I over-explained details about the aliens involved in the story, I again indulged in straight up torture, which really should have raised the story's rating to M. I really have mixed feelings about this one, looking back.

 **Shadows of the Future:** Ah, the Destiny Trilogy. I had such high hopes for this when I first conceived it. And this was a pretty decent start to it, even if it was a little rushed. I just think I rushed into the Zim/Jana shipping a little too quickly. Even if she already had a crush on him, I shouldn't have been dropping hints of him returning those feelings so quickly. But other than that, I think I did a good job, and this might just be the strongest entry in the trilogy.

 **Journal of an Invader:** This was supposed to be a fun little side project to work on in-between updates on other stories. As such, I was never as dedicated to it as other stories, so I suppose it's only natural that I lost interest in it eventually. Still, in the time I did write it, I like to think I at least got a few good gags in.

 **The End:** One of the darker things I've written. My take on all the "Zim somehow finally wins, so he and Dib have a showdown" stories out there. Honestly not all that good, seeing as Zim just throws out some stock "humans are assholes who deserve to die" lines, and that somehow breaks Dib into killing them both. I could have written this one so many different ways, but took the path of least resistance. Very disappointed in myself on this one.

 **Elegy:** This was meant to be the first of many Twilight Zone inspired IZ stories — I might still do more of those one day, but I'm not sure. Anyway, as for this one, I think it worked pretty well, if a little rushed, especially compared to the episode I was basing it on. Speaking of which, I probably shouldn't have copied the name of the episode and/or announced that it was based on said episode. Anyone with knowledge of the episode would have been spoiled right away. And that defeats the whole point of having a twist ending.

 **Evolution of Evil:** As the midpoint of the Destiny Trilogy, it's fitting that this story was the most mixed of the three. Great action scenes, Zim at his most overtly villainous, and technobabble-induced superpowers — all things I like to read. But again, I feel like I rushed the romance, and to me, that just seems to overshadow everything else.

 **Mirror, Mirror:** This was one of those anti-Gaz stories where I gave myself a deadline (Halloween, specifically) and then procrastinated on it significantly. As such, I had to rush the writing, and lost a lot of the slow progression of the mirror's magic driving Gaz crazy until she snaps and breaks it, triggering the final curse, that I had originally planned. She just jumps straight to it, which feels like a cheap copout.

 **Sweet Payback:** While I'm mostly pleased with this one, I feel like I again rushed things, with Dib agreeing to work with Zim against Gaz far too quickly. Also, should I have actually shown people reacting to the humiliating video of Gaz being released? Not sure. But in any case, for the most part I think this one's pretty well put together.

 **Galactic Armageddon:** What was meant to be the epic conclusion to the Destiny Trilogy just sort of petered out into nothing, didn't it? I think the main problem was that I had this epic conclusion in mind (a massive fight of all the major galactic powers teaming up against the GEST, while Dib and Tak fight Zim and Jana), but I never bothered to properly map out the path towards that. So, I just kept padding things out, with more and more pointless Zim/Jana scenes and unnecessary B- and C-plots (for example, giving Lard Nar both a political rival and setting up both a romance plot with Ixane and a tragic backstory), which just drained my interest in writing it. Maybe, just _maybe_ , I might find the energy to finish it one day. But I make no promises.

 **DriveThru:** This was pretty much a spur-of-the-moment writing exercise. No personal complaints about it, actually.

 **Gaz's Horrible Halloween of Doom:** My first Halloween-deadlined anti-Gaz story that was actually about Halloween. And overall, I think it worked out pretty well; no personal complaints about writing this one, either. Also, this was the first time I wrote for characters like Iggins, Bill, and Membrane, and my presentation of all of them seemed pretty well received.

 **Scrap and Oneshots:** Being as this is just a dumping ground for half-formed ideas and stories too short to bother giving them their own thing, there's really not much to say here. I will say that I like how some of the things I've written here have turned out.

 **A Grim Mission:** A brief backstory oneshot for Grimrair, the OC I jointly created with Familiar47 for his stories. This was always meant as just source material for Grim for future such stories, but Familiar seems to have dropped off the site, and I've never been able to come up with anything solid myself. Still, on its own, I think it's a pretty good piece of espionage drama.

 **Karma Circle: A Faerie Tale:** For this one, I was really aiming for the Twilight Zone-style story openings and closings the Dibsthe1's own KC stories all had. Not sure how that worked out in the end, but other than that, I really like how this one turned out.

 **Meeting of Devils:** My so far only Order of the Stick fanfic. It was a bit of experimentation on my part, and I enjoyed it — the style of the series is fairly easy to emulate. But for all that, it ended up with only _two_ reviews. The first of which I didn't even receive until almost _a year_ after publication. It kind of killed my desire to write for that fandom. Well, maybe in the future.

 **Night of the Mannequins:** An anti-Gaz that was meant to emulate Twilight Zone style horror (in fact, it was partially based on a classic episode, very loosely). But once again, I kind of rushed it, and I don't really know how to feel about the end result. And why did I add an alternate ending, something I've never done for any other story? At the time, it made perfect sense, but now, it just seems superfluous — especially since the second ending isn't as good as the first.

 **Game Over:** Another anti-Gaz I rushed through, but at least in this case, it's because my original plot didn't pan out like in my head. She was actually supposed to spend the whole story inside the game, then find out in the twist ending that she was trapped. But I just couldn't figure out how to make that work, so I skipped to the point.

 **A Wee Bit of Gaz:** This one, however, I am very satisfied with, and full credit has to go to Eduard Kassel, for fleshing out the whole plot from a simple prompt I threw his way. And once I started writing it, it came very easily, unlike some. Like I said, really proud of this one.

 **The New Adventures of Invader Zim:** My current main project, and shaping up to be my masterpiece. The episodic format I chose to use has been paying dividends, everyone seems to love these OCs, and so far I've managed to keep to the original style of the show pretty well. I have a lot of plans for the future of this series; just you wait.

 **Gaz's Haunted Night of Doom:** I didn't rush this one, and it sticked pretty close to the original plan. But I just don't know, I feel like I could have done more with this one, maybe had more, maybe deeper-meaning nightmares for Gaz. Meh, maybe I'm just being too critical of myself at this point.

 **The Revenge of Emperor Zim:** The first story of mine based directly on the IZ comic series, and one that written up pretty quickly after I thought it up. I just loved Emperor Zim, and wanted (still do) to see more of him, and this idea just came to me. And for such a quick project, I think it came out pretty well.

 **Karma Circle: Judgement:** This one was inspired by a request from Saintheartwing (or ngrey651, as he was then) to try and include his OCs in my work. Well, I started thinking over how, and then this idea just clicked into place when I was thinking of a couple of those OCs in particular. Overall, I think it worked out pretty well, even if it was a pain to get the momentum of writing it started.

 **Gaz the Jungle Girl's Bad Day:** This one's fairly unique, in that it wasn't even my idea. The Cowardly Christian sent the idea to me, entirely outlined, and I loved it so much I just had to write it. Though I did make a few changes to said outline to make it work just a little better. The second chapter was a bit more difficult to write, given the rather more mature content being slightly out of my comfort range. But, it all worked out perfectly in the end.

 **Not So Different:** This was another request, as a birthday present for Invader Johnny. And it was hard as hell to write, let me tell you. This introspective character stuff is not my forte. Which is why it was so far past IJ's actual birthday, given how hard it was just to get single scenes out. But, everyone seems to have liked the end result.

 **This Very Collection You're Reading Right Now:** Overall, while difficult, this collection has come together pretty well. A great way to celebrate my site anniversary. Hope you're all enjoying it.

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 **Fin**

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 **A/N: Agree with my assessments? Disagree? Both? Let me know.**


	3. House of Horror and Doom

**A/N: Now this one was a lot of fun to write. Definitely one of my favorites from this whole collection. Hope you all enjoy it as well.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim or any related characters. I only own the plot of this little story, and one OC who shows up near the end.**

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 **Entry 3: House of Horror and Doom**

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The Carnival had come to town, and it was as tackily lavish an affair as one might expect. Eye-searingly bright neon lights adorned numerous booths containing clearly rigged games of "chance". Food booths with grade Z ratings served deep-fried everything. Shoddily built rides spun, twisted, and threw around anyone daring or foolish enough to set foot on them. And sitting off to one side of the grounds was a haunted house attraction, designed to look like a stereotypical Victorian-era home.

It is here that our story begins, as standing outside the attraction were Dib and Gaz. The former was looking up at the building with a critical eye, while the latter was paying more attention to the corndog she was eating.

"Well, this is definitely the place, Gaz," Dib said, taking in every detail of the attraction's facade.

"Uh-huh. And why did you drag me here again?" she asked, while taking a bite of her snack and grimacing at it, "Ugh, tastes like a worn out shoe."

"Did you listen to me at all when I was explaining things back at home?" Dib asked, sounding somewhat annoyed.

"No. I just heard 'Carnival' and 'I'll pay for it, Gaz'. I tuned out the rest of the blather."

"Of course," Dib muttered, before speaking up, "Anyway, the point is, there's been a lot of rumors about this Carnival on TruthShrieker and other paranormal forums. It travels all over the country, visits a city for a few days, and then leaves. All perfectly normal. _But_ , every single time, a group of people go missing. Always last seen attending the Carnival, and specifically, last seen attending this haunted house. Allegedly, it's actually haunted. Or possessed. Maybe cursed."

"I ask again. Why did _I_ have to be here?" Gaz asked, cracking open an eye in a mild glare.

"I need a witness,, and backup" Dib explained, "If I disappear in there, you can inform the Swollen Eyeballs. That'll prove that something is actually happening here, and they can swoop in and put an end to it. And rescue me, obviously."

"So there's a chance that you go in there and might not come back?" Gaz asked, genuinely curious.

"Yeah, but don't worry. No matter what, I-" Dib started to say, only for Gaz to cut him off.

"I'm not worried, I'm hopeful," Gaz said with a smirk, "If you disappear, I'll finally get some peace and quiet."

"Your compassion is so touching," Dib said, deadpan.

"You want touching? Go rent a chick-flick," Gaz said, tossing her half-eaten corndog over her shoulder.

"Ah! My superior eye!" a familiar voice cried out from behind them. The Membrane siblings turned around to see Zim standing behind them, the corndog sticking to his eye, which was now bubbling and hissing at the contact with the meat. With a snarl of pain, the Invader tugged the corndog free, taking the contact with it.

"Zim!" Dib shouted, instinctively pointing at his archenemy, "What are you doing here?"

Zim didn't respond at first, instead rubbing at his sore eye, before peeling his contact off the corndog. He then tossed the snack away and put the contact back on. Only then did he turn to glare at his rival.

"For your information, Dib-Stink, Zim is only in this disgusting place because GIR dragged me here," Zim explained, pointing off to the side. The robot was wearing his little boy disguise, blue eyes glowing happily out of the fake head as he slurped from a Suck Monkey, oblivious to the world around him, as per usual.

"Anyway, what about you? Here to wallow with all the other filthy pig-smellies?" Zim sneered, still glaring at Dib.

"None of your business, Space Boy!" Dib said, matching the glare with one of his own.

"He's here to check out this stupid haunted house to see if it's really eating people, or something," Gaz said, easily cutting the tension as the others both turned to look at her in surprise.

"Gaz! Why would you tell him that?!"

"Pst. You two idiots were just going to yell back and forth at each other until he either figured it out himself or you let it slip. I just cut past all the stupid time wasting."

"Ha! Gullible little human," Zim snorted, "Even with as little as my amazing mind is able to comprehend of this idiotic planet, I still know that nothing on display in places like this are _real_. Your stupidity makes me laugh. Look, here I go. MWUHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Oh yeah?" Dib asked with a frown, before smirking, "Well, if you're so sure, Zim, what do you say to a little bet?"

"Eh? What bet?"

"We both go into that house and see what happens," Dib explained, "If it is haunted, I get to rub your nonexistent nose in it. If it's not… well, it's not like you need an excuse to gloat about anything, ever."

"Hmm, true," Zim mused, rubbing his chin, "And it would _so_ satisfying disprove your imbecilic beliefs, Dib-Stink. Hmm."

"Seriously?" Gaz deadpanned at Dib while Zim demurred over the offering.

"Eh, it's worth it," Dib shrugged, "If there is something happening here, I might be able to use Zim as a decoy against it. And if there's nothing, it's like I said — he gloats and brags about pointless stuff all the time, this won't be any different."

"Zim has decided!" The Irken announced, "I will take you up on your wager, Dib. We shall both venture into this ugly scare-house, and I will prove that your foolish big head is full of nonsense!"

"My head's not big!"

"Okay, I've hit my stupidity tolerance level," Gaz said, starting to walk away, "I'm outta here."

"Yes, that's right, little Gaz, walk away," Zim said condescendingly, waving a hand dismissively, "You don't want to be part of this, anyway. You'd just be cowering in fear like a little worm-baby the whole time."

Gaz froze mid-step, as the temperature in the surrounding area seemed to suddenly drop twenty degrees. Dib, eyes wide at the sheer suicidal stupidity of what he'd just heard, took a quick step back to get out of the line of fire.

Lowering her foot back to the ground in order to firmly plant herself, Gaz slowly turned around, bones seeming to creak and flames almost appearing in her cracked open eyes as she did so.

"What. Was. That?" she said, each word like a nail in a coffin. For his part, Zim seemed to have realized what he'd just done, his green skin growing paler as his eyes widened in panic.

"Er…" was all he got out, before she slugged him in the stomach. As he kneeled over and wheezed in pain, she grabbed him by the collar and started dragging him towards the haunted house's entrance, pausing only momentarily to grab Dib and start dragging him as well.

"Gah!" Dib yelped, stumbling as his sudden movement caught him off guard, "What did _I_ do?"

"This whole thing was your idiotic idea, so yeah, I'm going in there with both of you morons," Gaz growled, "Because I am not scared of _anything_. And once I'm done proving it here, I'm shoving both of you into a nightmare world."

"GIR! Don't just stand there! Help your master!" Zim yelled at the robot, who was just standing there watching the whole spectacle. In response to the command, his eyes briefly lit up red, but as per usual, quickly switched back to "normal". Humming a happy tune, he started skipping after the group.

"We going to go look for buried treasure, Scary Lady?" GIR asked.

"Uh-huh, whatever," Gaz said, not paying attention to GIR as she kicked the door to the house open and threw her two captives in. She then went in herself, GIR following behind.

The foyer of the house was cheesily creepy. Everything was painted in dark colors. Gothic paintings were hung on every wall. Candles and a lone chandelier hanging in the center of the room cast everything in flickering shadows. Cliche "spooky" sound effects were playing from barely concealed speakers in the corners of the room. And there were cobwebs — some clearly fake, at least some real — covering just about everything.

"Tch. Lame," Gaz muttered, while the boys pulled themselves up from where she'd left them sprawled on the floor.

"Wow, this place is so over the top it goes back to being cheap," Dib commented, looking the place over.

"Yes, yes, humans are bad are making everything, we all know this already," Zim said, ignoring the dirty look Dib shot him, "Let's just get this over with; Zim has more important things to do with his time."

With that, the group started moving, heading towards a nearby doorway. It lead into a kitchen, which was setup to look like a slaughter had just taken place — clearly plastic human remains sat on the chopping block and in a bubbling pot on the stove, all of them and the rubber knives scattered around the room covered in "blood" that not even the room's dim red lighting could hide was just corn syrup.

"Is this supposed to be scary? Zim has seen worse kitchens on Foodcourtia!"

"Uh-huh. Your robot's licking the wall, by the way," Gaz said dispassionately, gesturing offhand to where GIR was indeed licking at a splatter of the fake blood on one of the walls.

Growling in annoyance, Zim grabbed GIR and dragged him after the Membranes as they exited through another door. Unsurprisingly, this one led into a dining room. The long table filling up most of the center of the room was covered in dishes containing plastic and ceramic replicas of rotten fruit and maggot-ridden meat, while fake corpses dressed in fine clothing were slumped over in all the chairs.

"At least they put a little more effort into this one," Dib commented, as the group passed through the room, exiting the other side and emerging into a hallway full of doors. Picking one at random, the group entered, walking into a large library. Large, dust-covered bookshelves towered over the room, but other than that and the standard effects that had been present in all the other rooms, there was nothing else.

"Are you sure all those people who disappeared around here didn't just die of boredom?" Gaz asked, arching an eyebrow at Dib.

"Is that something that can happen to humans?" Zim asked, a little too excitedly.

"No!" Dib snapped.

As the two quickly descended into another pointless argument, Gaz rolled her eyes and wondered off to the side of the room, where she'd noted an alcove of some kind. Walking through it revealed a small lounge like room. There was a fireplace, a reading table, and a few comfortable-looking chairs, one of which contained a plastic skeleton in leisure clothes.

Snorting in dismissal, Gaz turned to exit the lounge back to the main library… and then a panel slid shut, sealing off the doorway she'd walked through. Gaz blinked in surprise, then frowned and marched over to the suddenly blocked exit.

"Dib!" she yelled, pounding on the wall, "Let me out of here!"

There was no response, and Gaz growled as she realized that the barrier was probably too thick for anyone on the other side to hear her. Glaring, she started stalking the room, looking for whatever hidden switch that must have triggered the door, so she could use it to get out.

So focused was she on that, in fact, that she failed to notice as one of the creepy paintings on the wall started changing. The picture of a mist-filled graveyard distorted and shifted, becoming an amorphous black blob, which shockingly began emerging from the frame. This black mass formed into a tendril and snaked across the room towards the oblivious Goth, who was bent over, examining the floor for pressure triggers.

Gaz suddenly tensed as she sensed something behind her. She jumped up, but before she could even spin around, the tendril lashed out and hit her in the back of the head.

"GAH!" she cried out, grabbing her head as pain blossomed behind her eyes for a moment, disorienting her, "What the hell hit me? …Huh?"

As her spinning vision cleared, Gaz saw to her total confusion that her surroundings had changed. No longer was she in the lounge alcove. Instead, she was sitting inside a cubical, pink-tinted glass cell, bare of anything except a bed and a small table holding a TV. Outside of the cell was a larger room that was also entirely empty.

Taking this all in, Gaz went pale as she recognized where she was. This… this was the containment cell she'd been kept in during that Pigmouth fiasco, when she'd been locked up and made into a public spectacle. It was the most humiliating stretch of time in her life, a total living hell. And now, somehow, she was back here!

"No, no, no," she muttered, feeling rare panic overcome her. Running up to the glass wall, she began desperately banging her fists on it, trying to smash through the glass, "Let me out! Let me out right…"

Gaz's threats to the empty air trailed off as her frantic mind finally processed the sight of the hands she was slamming into the glass. More importantly, the sight of the pink gloves covering them.

Looking down at herself, Gaz's eyes widened in further shock as she saw she was wearing that stupid pig-styled "protection" suit. Reaching up to her face, she realized she was even wearing the ridiculous snout-looking respirator. She desperately tugged at it, but it wouldn't come off, nor would the suit, no matter how much she tried to tear it off.

And just when she thought that this couldn't possibly get any worse, that was when previously unseen doors opened, and a large crowd of people marched into the room, most carrying various Pig Girl merchandise emblazoned with pictures of her in this horrible outfit. They all assembled in front of the cell and stared at her, silently muttering amongst themselves.

"Wow, momma, she sure is funny looking!" a little girl said much too cheerfully, pointing at Gaz.

"She sure is, honey," the girl's mother said, nodding with a wide smile. This set off a round of laughter from the rest of the crowd, which caused Gaz's eyes to start twitching.

"Shut up!" she yelled, pounding impotently against the glass, "Stop laughing at me! And let me out! I'm cured! I don't need to be here! I- oh, no."

The cause of Gaz's ranting cutting off was what she suddenly saw out of the corner of her eye. Slowly turning her head in dread, she saw that a plate stacked high with hot dogs had appeared on a table she was sure hadn't been there a moment ago.

Her stomach rolled at the sight of them. Ever since she'd gone through this whole ordeal, she hadn't been able to stand the sight of hot dogs and other pork products, let alone eat them. They utterly disgusted her like nothing else.

So why was she walking towards them?!

To her horror, Gaz found herself walking towards the hot dogs, totally unable to stop her legs from moving. Nor was she able to stop her hands as they pushed aside the snout respirator and grabbed a hot dog, lifting it towards her mouth. And absolutely worst of all, she was unable to stop her mouth from opening and biting down on the foul meat.

Gaz gagged as it filled her mouth, jaws chomping despite her mental protests. And then, practically before she could swallow, the process was repeated, another hot dog being shoved in. Then another, and another, and another…

"Wow, she even _eats_ like a pig!" she heard someone in the audience comment.

"What a freak!" someone else stated, triggering more laughs and jeers.

"Pig Girl! Pig Girl! Pig Girl! Pig Girl!" the crowd chanted, as Gaz silently screamed inside her head.

XXXXXXX

"Gaz!" Dib called out, as he, Zim, and GIR wandered down the haunted house's seemingly endless hallways. When he and Zim had finished their rather pointless argument over whether Zim would be able to find a way to weaponize boredom and if it would work against the Earth, Dib had noticed that Gaz had disappeared from the room.

Being both paranoid in general and a (somewhat unnecessarily so) protective older brother, right now he was panicking over the fact that he couldn't find her.

"Gaz! Can you hear me?!" he called again, only to receive no response other than his echo, "Dammit! Where could she have gone?"

"Obviously the Dib-Sister became so frightened by this pitiful place that she ran off with her tail between her arms," Zim said dismissively.

"The expression is 'tail between her _legs_ '," Dib corrected with a roll of his eyes, "And that's about as likely as you going five minutes without insulting me, or humanity in general."

"And what do you think happened, Earth monkey? That your demon-curse-ghosts or whatever took her?"

"First of all, I never said 'demon-curse-ghosts'. Secondly, I don't _know_ what happened, that's why I'm worried!"

"Psh," Zim snorted, "Zim fails to understand why you'd even _care_ , though. The Gaz-Beast is a horrid little monster, you should be glad to be rid of her."

"Hey, don't talk about my sister like that!" Dib snapped — admittedly, he had his own issues with Gaz and her attitude, but that wasn't something he wanted someone outside the family, least of all his worst enemy, bringing up.

"What's wrong, Dib? Did I hit a nerve?" Zim smiled smugly, turning on his heel and walking backwards, "Face it, human. This is why I will always win — Irkens are not held back by such pointless emotional attachments. We stand vigilant and undefeated! We-AAAHHH!"

Zim's rant was cut off as the floor suddenly disappeared beneath him, and he dropped out of sight. Dib blinked in confusion as this happened, watching as Zim's wig comically floated in midair for a moment before following after Zim into the trapdoor that had opened beneath him, and which shut closed seconds later.

"Well, that was unexpected," he said after a moment of stunned silence.

Meanwhile, Zim was falling down a shaft, still screaming in surprise, until he finally hit the ground with a slam, his wig landing on him a moment later. Groaning, he got to his feet and looked around, while adjusting his wig back into its proper place.

He was standing in a narrow corridor, lit only by a handful of torches mounted on bare brick walls. Looking down at the floor, Zim frowned in disgust at seeing it was just packed dirt; apparently, he was in the basement of the building.

"Filthy human construction," he muttered, "And who's the fool who put in a trap door without any kind of warning sign?! When I get out of here, I'm going to vaporize this place and turn into into a burrito stand! And I'm going to let GIR fill it with all his awful rodent burritos!"

As Zim ranted and stomped down a random direction of the hallway, he failed to notice as one of the torches suddenly extinguished, the torch and its holder morphing into a black tendril. It stretched outward towards the oblivious Irken, and suddenly lashed against the back of his head, which he never saw coming.

"AH!" Zim cried out, clutching his head as pain exploded throughout his skull, "Who dares strike Zim?! …Eh?"

Zim blinked in utter confusion as he looked around. Not only was he no longer in the underground corridor, he wasn't in the haunted house either. In fact, he was standing outside, on a busy sidewalk, surrounded by a crowd of humans. Not only that, but whereas he knew it had been nighttime when he'd entered the building, now it was clearly daytime.

What was going on? How had he gotten here? And why were all the humans staring at him like that?

"An alien!" someone shouted. Head snapping around, Zim saw a man in the crowd pointing a finger in wide-eyed shock. Right at him.

"Eh, what? No, Zim is a perfectly normal human! See?" Zim said, reaching up to point at his wig… and feeling his hand brush against his antennae. Eyes widening, Zim reached up and found to his shock and panic that his wig was in fact gone. Scrambling down his face also revealed that his contacts were missing as well.

He was standing in public, in broad daylight, surrounded by humans, and he wasn't wearing his disguise.

Panic overwhelmed the Irken, as all the other humans started pointing and yelling, many of them pulling out phones to take pictures and video of him. Watching all this, Zim felt his squeedlyspooch twist and churn, his mind whirling to try and make sense of this. He had no idea how he'd ended up here, how he'd been exposed like this. All he knew was that he had been.

Sending a mental command to his PAK, Zim attempted to activate his weapons, any weapons, so he could vaporize all these people before they could tell anyone else about him. But he received no response — not from his spider legs, or blasters, or cutting tools, or anything else. Nothing in his PAK was responding to his orders, meaning he was completely defenseless.

And that was when he heard the sirens. Looking towards them, he was greeted by the sight of several armored vehicles coming to a screeching halt. Their doors were flung open, and heavily armed soldiers came pouring out.

"Don't move, space freak!" the lead soldier ordered, as his men dispersed the crowd and aimed their weapons at Zim.

At this point, the last of Zim's functioning mind collapsed. Screaming like a howler monkey, he turned and ran off in the opposite direction from the soldiers, throwing any civilian unfortunate enough to get in his way behind him, trying to use them as projectiles against the soldiers.

However, it was all for nothing, in the end. Zim barely made it to the next street corner before he was tackled by a particularly stout soldier. The blow took him to the ground, where the soldier's weight pinned him, unable to break free no matter how much he struggled.

"Release Zim at once, you stink-ape!" Zim demanded with as much authority as he could muster, which wasn't much considering the situation. He flailed his arms and legs as much as he could to try and gain some kind of leverage, but in seconds even that was taken from him, other soldiers piling on and securing his limbs.

"Quick, someone get the holding pod!" one of the soldiers yelled. Before Zim knew what was happening, he was hoisted into the air, and then quickly stuffed into a glass tube just barely big enough for him to move move around a few inches in.

"The specimen is secured, sir," one of the soldiers reported with a salute to the apparent leader.

"Excellent work. Now, let's get it back to the base. Move out!" the leader ordered.

"No! Release Zim! Release Zim now!" Zim demanded, pounding on the glass as best he could.

But it was no good, and he was soon loaded onto one of the armored cars. The doors shut, and it zoomed off, taking the screaming Irken with it.

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"Okay, so, let's recap," Dib muttered to himself as he wandered yet another hallway of the haunted house, ignoring the cheesy stock scares he was passing, "Zim has disappeared. Which is great, so I could just leave him here. Except Gaz is missing too, and I can't just abandon her. And on top of that, I have no idea where either of them are anyway. In fact, I'm pretty lost. How big is this place?"

"It's bigger on the inside!" GIR said, for some reason with a British accent.

"And you're still here. Forgot about that," Dib said with a groan, turning to look at the little robot, "Why are you following me, again?"

"You got the breadcrumbs, Bighead?"

"That doesn't answer my question. And my head's not big!" Dib snapped, stomping off to try and put some distance between him and GIR. As he did, he failed to notice as a rubber snake dangling from the ceiling suddenly came to life, twisting and morphing into a black mass. It slithered through the air towards him, and prepared to strike, totally unnoticed.

By him, anyway.

"Ooh, what's that?" GIR asked, staring curiously up at the tendril.

"What's what?" Dib asked, turning around. Eyes widening, he jumped aside with a yelp and barely avoided the tendril's strike. Hitting the floor and rolling, he got into a crouch and looked up, taking in the sight of what had just tried to attack him. It was a black tendril, attached at the base to the ceiling, with its free end split open into a maw that looked like a sea anemone, with numerous small, razor-thin glowing filaments flailing about within it.

"What the heck is that?!" Dib exclaimed, stunned at the bizarre sight. Then he cried out again as it lashed towards him once more. He rolled out of the way, and before it had a chance to rebound, he hit it with the nearest heavy object he could get his hands on — which turned out to be GIR, whom he grabbed around the waist. Lifting the robot over his head, Dib slammed him down on the tendril's head, smashing it into black and purple goo.

Breathing heavily from the sudden adrenaline rush, Dib dropped a giggling GIR, and moved to inspect the remains of the tendril.

"What is this thing?" Dib muttered, pulling a pencil from his pocket and using it to stir the goo around.

"Why don't you ask its friends?" GIR asked, pointing behind Dib. Spinning around to follow GIR's extended finger, Dib's eyes widened in fear. The hallway was rippling like water, and more tendrils were emerging from paintings, photographs, lights, decorations, and even the wood itself, rising up out of the walls, ceiling, and floor.

"…Ah, crap," Dib said flatly, before spinning on his heel and running down the hall.

The next few minutes were a blur, as Dib rushed down hall after hall and through door after door, ducking and dodging out of the way of countless tendrils, always seeming to stay only one step ahead of any of them. Finally, he burst out back into the front foyer the group had entered the house through. Pausing only for a moment to locate the door, Dib began sprinting for it, desperate to get out.

He'd tell people what happened here, and come back with reinforcements. Swollen Eyeballs, police, military, he didn't know who, but _somebody_ would have to believe him. And when they did, he'd bring them back here to destroy this place!

Oh, and rescue Gaz and Zim and anybody else it had grabbed too, of course.

However, just before he could reach the front door, still slightly askew from when Gaz had kicked it open, it suddenly righted itself and slammed shut. Dib's eyes widened in surprise, but even as he tried to skid to a stop, his momentum slammed him into it, the impact knocking him off his feet to hit the floor.

Thus disoriented, Dib didn't notice as another tendril emerged from the floor behind him, and lashed out. It impacted directly with the back on his head, maw latching on tight, its filaments digging into the skull.

Dib screamed in momentary pain, before it subsided, and he suddenly found his surroundings totally changed. Blinking in confusion, he looked around, finding himself in what appeared to be a dilapidated grocery store.

"What? Where am I? How did I… gah," Dib muttered, grasping his aching head. Hadn't he been somewhere else a minute ago? He tried to remember, but his thoughts were cloudy and wouldn't focus. He shook his head, trying to clear it as best he could, before wandering off towards the shattered opening of the building, figuring he could better figure out where he was from the outside.

He stepped out of the store, and his eyes widened in shock.

Everything around him was in ruins. Buildings were collapsed, many of them on fire, or showing signs of having recently burned. Even more disturbing, however, was the sight of multiple Irken ships zooming about all over the city, as well as various hover-screen floating around, some displaying the Irken symbol or Zim's face. Others were flashing messages like "Zim rules!", "Humans, Obey or be Doomed!", and "No Loitering!".

"This… this isn't possible," Dib muttered. How could this have happened? It didn't make any sense.

"You there! Human!" a voice suddenly called out from behind him. Spinning around, Dib found himself facing a squadron of Irkens, all heavily armed and glaring at him.

"This area is off limits. What are you doing here?" the one in the lead demanded.

"Uh…" Dib said, too stunned by all this to properly react.

"Hey, wait a minute!" one of the other Irkens said, pulling up a holographic screen with Dib's face on it, "That's the bigheaded human Invader Zim told us to be on the lookout for!"

"My head's not big!" Dib shouted, purely on instinct, before lamely adding, "And, uh, no I'm not?"

"Seize him!" the lead Irken commanded, pointing at Dib. He turned and ran, but didn't get far before he was tackled to the ground. After a few minutes of struggle, he found himself bound high-tech manacles, laser guns pointed right at his neck by the Irkens surrounding him. As he sweated bullets, the lead Irken pulled out a communicator and dialed a few buttons.

"What is it?!" Zim's voice screeched out of the device, causing everyone to flinch.

"Sir, this is Patrol Unit 59290. We've found the human you had us on the lookout for."

"WHAT?!" Zim yelled, "You caught the Dib? Wonderful! Hmm, what should I do with him? Experimentation, or just vaporize him?"

"Well, sir, I think that-"

"Shut up! Zim doesn't care what you think!" Zim snapped, "Bring him to me at once! Or I'll turn your head into a doughnut!"

"Er… yes, sir?" the soldier confirmed in confusion, before shaking it off and putting the communicator away, turning back to his men and Dib, "You heard the Invader. Back to base!"

As the Irkens started forcibly marching him, Dib tried to struggle, only to be zapped with a shock rod. He fell to the ground, and was dragged away, twitching. And all the while, the screens bearing Zim's maniacally laughing face hovered above them all.

XXXXXXX

"Hee-hee. You're like a zombie," GIR giggled, poking at Dib's unresponsive body. The boy in question was lying slumped on the floor, supported only by the tendril attached to the back of his head, and his eyes staring blankly ahead, and glowing a vibrant purple.

GIR had followed Dib as he'd run through the house, the tendrils all ignoring him for some reason. GIR hadn't paid that much mind, skipping happily through the halls until he'd found Dib in his current condition. And as he watched, the tendril started pulling back, dragging Dib with it. As he reached the spot of the floor where the tendril was based, it all went black, and Dib started sinking into it like quicksand.

Most people would have reacted with shock or panic at a sight like this. GIR, however, was not by any stretch of the imagination what one might call "most people".

"Oooooo, let me come too!" GIR said, hopping onto Dib's legs at the last minute and being dragged down into the floor with him. As they vanished, the floor solidified and regained its normal color, seemingly entirely back to normal.

Meanwhile, Dib and GIR were falling down a deep, pitch black pit, the robot screaming at the top of his metal lungs in pure joy the whole time. After a few minutes, they hit the bottom, GIR bouncing off of Dib from the force of the impact.

"Geronimo!" he cried happily, looking around.

The chamber they'd landed in was truly massive, lit only by an unnatural glow the same shade of purple as that filling Dib's eyes. Speaking of which, as GIR watched, Dib was lifted up into the air by the tendril holding him, which carried him up into the air, coming to a rest dangling in the air… amongst hundreds of other people, including Gaz and Zim, all being held by tendrils, with their eyes glowing and totally dead to the world.

GIR, not really comprehending the horror of what he was seeing, moved his gaze, following the web of tendrils covering the roof of the chamber like a spider's web, towards where they all converged at a central spot. There, descending towards the floor like a giant stalactite, was a great amorphous black blob, covered in dozens of bulbous eyes, all glowing that same purple, the source of the light filling the room.

"Pretty lights," GIR cooed, staring at the horrible thing. In response to the sound of his voice, the eyes shifted around in the mass, many of them coming to rest in a way that left them looking at him.

" _What is this?_ " the creature demanded in a voice that sounded like gravel in a blender, " _Why did I not sense your presence before now, little worm?_ "

"You look like a Christmas tree!" GIR said, not answering the question.

"… _Ah, I see. You're some kind of imbecile. Well, that would explain why I couldn't feel your mind,_ " the being mused, " _Hmm, well, it doesn't matter. Allow me to introduce myself, tiny, insignificant being. I am Shlog'ec'mer. I am a life form from far beyond the universe as your puny three-dimensional mind comprehends it. I travel from world to world, feeding upon the weak. I disguise myself in other forms, like this pitiful attraction house, to lure them to me. And then, I take those whom my senses tell me have the deepest, most delicious traumas and fears._ "

As Shlog'ec'mer spoke, three of its eyes widened, and started displaying images like television screens. One showed Gaz, on a stage and being forced to do a publicity stunt for "Pig Girl the Movie". Another showed Zim, strapped to a table in a sterile white room, as men in lab coats towered over him wielding scalpels. And the third showed Dib chained up in a room full of Irkens, Zim leering at him from a throne as the other Irkens threw rocks and garbage at a bullseye painted on his head.

" _Once I have taken my prey, I trap them within their worst nightmares, which run on endless loops. Then I feed on the fear they feel in those nightmares, until their bodies and minds whither away. And once I've taken my fill of a world, I move on, in a never-ending- what are you doing?!_ "

GIR had completely tuned out Shlog'ec'mer's monologue, and was poking and prodding at its eyes.

"You got da Scary Monkey Show? I wanna see the monkey!" he yelled. The monster he was prodding growled in annoyance at his antics.

" _Enough of this! Now you join the rest!_ "

With that, a tendril emerged from the central mass and lashed out at GIR. He didn't even try to dodge it, and it hit him dead on, punching clean through the head of his costume and smacking into the metal of his actual head. The clanging sound took Shlog'ec'mer by surprise, but before it could be processed, the link was made, and its mind connected with GIR's.

The poor eldritch abomination never knew what hit it.

There was a moment of tense silence. Then suddenly, all of Shlog'ec'mer's purple eyes turned the same shade of blue as GIR's. It dropped him, and its mass and other tendrils started spasming wildly.

" _Half off prune juice Aisle 6! The cake is a lie! Here, piggy piggy! Red rover, red rover! Ich bien Berliner!_ " Shlog'ec'mer ranted and raved. All its tendrils began waving wildly, causing all its captives to go flying around the chamber, smacking into each other, its central mass, and the walls, all while GIR sat in the middle of the chaos, oohing and awing at everything that was happening.

Meanwhile, unseen from that chamber, the whole haunted house attraction was convulsing. The building was shaking, doors and windows slamming open and close, walls and floors cracking open. The lights flickered and the audio equipment squealed, as if they were all suffering a power surge. And most telling of all, entire portions of the structure dissolved into masses of flailing tendrils.

The outside view was even more bizarre, for the few who actually bothered to stop and take a look. Lights flashed through every window, even as the glass shattered and blew out, and the entire building shook. And then, the building actually began twisting and contorting, shifting to a black mass shot through with blue light. That mass kept twisting even as it grew like an overinflated balloon, bigger, and bigger, and bigger…

Finally, with a screeching sound mostly out of the range audible to human hearing, that balloon popped. In a flash of pure light, the goo exploded, most of it vaporizing in the process. The flash lasted only a few moments, and when it faded, it revealed a surprising sight.

The haunted house had become a crater, filled with the remnants of the good, as well as the numerous people that Shlog'ec'mer had been feeding on. All of them were singed and unconscious, though none were seriously harmed, and a few were slowly coming around.

"Ergh, what happened?" Dib groaned as he woke up, rubbing his head. Looking around, he blinked at the sight of all the other unconscious people around him.

"Hey, I think those are all the people who went missing," he said, "But what are they doing here? What am _I_ doing here? Where'd the haunted house go-AH!"

Dib was cut off as Gaz suddenly grabbed him by the throat and started dragging him away.

"We are leaving. _Now,_ " she growled, not even looking at Dib as she pulled him behind her, ignoring his protests.

Meanwhile, Zim stirred back awake and sat up, clutching his head in pain.

"Gah, what hit me?" he muttered.

"The Christmas tree man exploded!" GIR said, from where he was sitting nearby.

"Eh? What are you talking about?"

"Hey!" a voice called out. Looking up at the top of the crater, Zim saw a Carnival security guard glaring down at him.

"Did you do this?" the guard demanded.

"Um, no, it was… him!" Zim said, pointing at a random unconscious person. He then grabbed GIR and ran off, quickly exiting the Carnival.

And with that, this story came to a close, already destined to be totally forgotten.

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 **The End**

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 **A/N: Now, admittedly, the ending there is little lackluster, but I couldn't think of anything better. Still, hope you all enjoyed it anyway.**


	4. Discarded Story Ideas

**A/N: And here you have a list of stories I've considered over the past decade, but for one reason or another, I've never written. Read on, and let me know what you think of them.**

 **Disclaimer: Again, I'm not sure I need a disclaimer for this sort of thing, but just in case, let me say again that I do not own Invader Zim or any character canon to it. I just own the ideas listed below.**

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 **Entry 4: Discarded Story Ideas**

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 **Miyuki Resurrection:** Inspired by DemonSurfer's Zero Negative, the first Zim/Miyuki story I ever read. At the time it was posted, DemonSurfer had a proposal for a followup story on their profile, where Miyuki somehow gets brought back to life from within the Infinite Energy Absorbing Blob, and she and Zim hook up. I felt it was a shame this story never happened, and considered adopting it once DemonSurfer took the idea down and left the fandom, but never got around to it (probably for the best, as I've since learned I can't write romance well).

 **Zim's Heir/Zim's Legacy:** An idea I had for a two-part story series. Years after Dib exposed and defeated Zim in a climactic final battle, a series of high-tech terrorist attacks against human institutions in general and the Swollen Eyeballs in particular lead Dib into a confrontation with a cloned "son" of Zim's, left in stasis in a fully stocked backup base, set up to avenge Zim if he was ever defeated. Scrapped because of the massive plot hole of Zim leaving all these resources just lying around.

 **Invader Zim Infinities:** Inspired by _Star Wars Infinities_ and _Marvel What-Ifs_. A collection of oneshots based on alternate history scenarios, like "What if Dib were the Invader on Irk, and Zim was the only one aware?", or "What if Tak hadn't been kept from taking her Invader exam?", or "What if Miyuki hadn't been eaten by the Blob?" or "What if Dib and Gaz's roles were reversed?". Stuff like that, but I just never got around to it.

 **Danny Phantom/Transformers Crossover Oneshot:** A relic from when I actually tried writing outside of the IZ fandom. It was supposed to be this long meeting and philosophical discussion between Clockwork and Vector Prime, but I was never able to scrap together more than a few paragraphs of it, so it was abandoned. Plus, I've since realized that all my attempts to write for other series haven't been that good, so it's probably for the best I never got back to this.

 **Invader Zim/Cthulhu Mythos Crossover:** Some of you might remember a "Scraps and Oneshots" entry where Miss Bitters talks with Nyarlathotep, and I mentioned I was considering doing a full-scale crossover story. Well, I've never gotten around to that, mostly because I just can't seem to get a handle on a plot. Maybe some day, but not for the foreseeable future.

 **Sequel to Reckoning:** Way back when I finished Reckoning, I closed it on a sequel hook, and an open promise that one day, I'd follow up on it. But while I do have a vague outline in mind, I just can't seem to work up the motivation to flesh it out, let alone actually write it. Again, maybe in the future, but not any time soon.

 **While The World Burns:** This was going to be my attempt at writing a ZAGR piece, focused on Gaz and Zim watching from space as the planet's destroyed by Zim's final, actually successful plan, while Gaz reflects on their relationship. However, it never got past the draft stage, as I realized I was just listing a bunch of the ship's biggest cliches, and in a very stilted manner at that. So, it got scrapped.

 **Dib Switches Sides Story:** Another idea that never got past the concept stage, this was going to be one of those "Dib gets so sick with humanity he inexplicably teams up with Zim to destroy it" stories. But then I realized how weak a plot I had, and worse, the basic outline I came up with in my head seemed a little too close to ZADR. Which I will _never_ write.

 **Songfic Collection:** This was going to be a collection of oneshots based on songs from various musicals. Then I realized how stupid songfics are, and that was that.

 **Nostalgia Critic Parody:** I saw a bunch of these in the Cartoon X-overs section, and was going to do my own. But then I realized that I'm an awful critic — I either like something or I don't, I can't really grade things.

 **Untitled Destiny Trilogy Backstory:** This story was going to do double duty, expanding on Zim's rise to power in Jana's timeline as she described it in those stories, as well as letting me play more with my other OC Grimrair. Specifically, I was going to incorporate him and his siblings, Familiar47's other OCs, into the DT future's timeline, and showing what roles Tallest Zim would have given them.

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 **Fin**

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 **A/N: What do you think, everybody? Should I give any of these another shot?**


	5. CYOA IZ Style

**A/N: Okay, this one's a little different. I love Choose Your Own Adventure style books, and interactive stories. So, here's a little take on what an Invader Zim style such book would look like.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim or any of the characters who appear below.**

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 **Entry 5: CYOA IZ Style**

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 **8**

"And now I, Zim, am the Master of the Universe!" Zim declared, holding the massive sword above his head.

"…Zim, that's a prop sword from a movie," Dib said, deadpan.

"You lie!"

"Whatever," Dib said, walking away. Turned out, there was no threat here this time.

 **The End**

 **15**

Professor Membrane flipped the switch, despite Dib's panicked warnings, and the particle accelerator activated. And, just as Zim had planned, his sabotage caused it to explode, sending out a wave of anti-matter that vaporized half the planet in an instant.

As for the other half of the planet, Zim waited in orbit for a few days to let the surviving humans wallow in fear and despair, then descended and took over.

The Tallest would later turn the remainder of the planet into a giant bowl of dipping sauce.

 **The End**

 **22**

Gaz woke up with a scream, and looked around.

Oh, thank goodness, it had all just been a dream. She wasn't really being made to dance on stage in a unicorn costume.

Sighing, she went back to sleep.

 **The End**

 **26**

They all turned out to be dogs or something.

 **The End**

 **34**

Zim cackled as he finished the process of downloading the full contents of the Internet onto his computer. He should have done this ages ago — with the full sum of the humans' knowledge at his disposal, he would easily be able to discern their weaknesses, and destroy them all. Now, he just had to begin searching through the contents…

"What the… GAH!" he shrieked in sudden disgust, as image after image of human sexual activity started flashing across the screen. Pictures, videos, badly written fanfiction, people in weird animal costumes, girls with cups; all this and more appeared before the poor Irken.

Hours later, GIR would find his master in a catatonic state, surrounded by his own puke.

 **The End**

 **42**

Dib had finally found it. The hidden mountain temple containing the meaning of life! Now, all he had to do was walk in and claim it.

And that was how he found himself being chased by a tribe of vicious temple guardians, eventually leading to his being thrown into a bottomless pit.

 **The End**

 **50**

Zim and Dib were utterly worn down, barely able to even stand anymore as the next wave of the demon zombie horde burst down their barricades and started swarming towards them. They gave each a shared look of grudging respect, and then charged forward towards the horde, waving their weapons with shrill battle cries.

They might die, but at least they'd go out like badasses.

 **The End**

 **63**

Zim and Dib could only stare in shock at the image being projected on the Interdimensional Mirror.

"You'll never win, Zammy!" Debra Membrane shouted, long ponytail flapping dramatically behind her as she glared at her archenemy, "I'll never let you conquer Earth!"

"Foolish stink-girl, you'll never stop me!" the green girl shouted back.

"Idiots," Debra's brother Gus commented, walking by playing his Game Slave.

"…Let us never speak of this again," Zim said, as he shut down the Mirror and quickly started disassembling it.

"Agreed," Dib said, suddenly very glad that this adventure had reached an

 **End**

 **66**

Señor Diablo looked at the alien, purple-haired girl, and old woman who had all just fallen through the portal in the sky above his domain.

"This feels like the set up to a bad joke," he commented, then shrugged and walked off, leaving the trio of new arrivals to adjust to life in Hell.

 **The End**

 **68**

Dib shot up in bed with a yelp, and looked around in confusion. How had he gotten back here? Hadn't he just been fighting Zim and trying to defuse the Irken's Temporal Bomb.

Then his eyes widened as they fell on his digital clock and saw the date. It was yesterday's. He'd been sent back in time!

This was insane! …But it was also great, wasn't it? Now he could do everything all over again. And this time, he'd be able to do it right!

With that, Dib jumped out of bed, and ran off to get things started.

 **The End**

 **76**

Dib opened the closet and found Slenderman. He was never heard from again.

 **The End**

 **79**

As Dib cheerfully walked away from the scene of Zim's defeat, he completely failed to notice the containment cube that Gaz was still stuck in upside down, legs kicking angrily and uselessly in the air as she struggled futilely to break free.

Between that and the soundproof glass blocking off her screamed death threats, she could do nothing but turn red in the face as curious crowds began to gather, pointing and laughing at her exposed rear

 **End**

 **85**

Zim and Dib stared at each other. The former had been turned into a squirrel, and the latter into a rabbit.

"I blame you for this," Zim said bluntly.

 **The End**

 **91**

Zim stood triumphantly above the destroyed city, atop his Battle Mech, laughing maniacally as the ruins burned beneath him.

And then the holo-chamber shut off, the simulation ending, leaving Zim standing in the middle of the empty room.

"Well, that was fun. And great practice for when I conquer the humans for real," he said, "Okay GIR, I'm done. You can have the room now."

"Yay!" GIR cheered, before turning on his holographic mushroom and donut friends, and began partying.

 **The End**

 **99**

Tak smirked to herself as she took in her work. Zim, his idiotic robot, Dib, and his sister were all hooked into virtual reality simulators, each trapped within what they would consider a perfect dream world. And even if they realized it, they'd never find a way out.

She had won!

 **The End**

 **101**

The author stared at his computer screen for far too long, before deciding he couldn't come up with any more ideas for this entry. Thus, he decided to bring it to an

 **End**

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 **A/N: Yeah, I wanted to do more with this, but couldn't think of anything else. Feel free to imagine more yourself!**


	6. Fourth Wall Breakage

**A/N: And here's the next one, lads and gents. This is one of the segments I was most looking forward to writing, if only because it's the first time I'm writing a crack fic. Hope you all enjoy the nonsense.**

 **Also, I apologize for the lack of a proper chapter title, but I decided to just call it as it is.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own any canon Invader Zim characters. I** _ **do**_ **, however, own all the characters who appear within this chapter.**

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 **Entry 6: Fourth Wall Breakage**

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Somewhere within a pocket dimension that itself existed within the mind of a nerdy fanfic writer with no social life, there was a bar and lounge known as the Hole In The (Fourth) Wall. It was a cozy place, with a fully stocked bar, a roaring fire place, lots of comfy chairs, multiple book shelves, and an entertainment center containing everything from a pool table to a widescreen TV to an extensive video arcade.

A group of disparate beings, mostly Irken, were scattered around the room, talking amongst themselves or just minding their own business. They all, however, looked up at the sound of the front door opening, and a trio of people walked in.

Norlock the vampire strode confidently up to the bar, while the twins Steve and Viera walked behind, slightly more nervous, due to the looks they were getting from the other patrons. Norlock either didn't notice or care, and walked right up to the bar, smirking at the being on the other side of it.

"Hello Prime, my good man," he greeted faux-cheerfully, "The usual, if you will. And something nonalcoholic for my young friends here."

The massive Control Brain seated behind the bar glared at the vampire, but his metal tentacles went to work. Soon, a Bloody Mary (with actual blood) was placed before Norlock, while a couple of glasses of soda were set aside for the twins.

As the newcomers settled down with their drinks, the other assembled OCs kept giving them silent looks that ranged from mild annoyance to full on glares. Finally, one of them chose to break the silence.

"What are you three doing here, anyway?" Jana asked with a sneer from where she sat in a recliner by the fire, glass of Vortian fire whiskey in one hand, "Shouldn't you all be off on your 'New Adventures' that everyone seems to love so much?"

"Author's been on a break from the story lately to work on other projects," Steve replied, trying to ignore the assassin's attitude.

"Including this one," Viera added, before frowning, "And I really hope he doesn't go meta like this again, because it's making my head hurt."

"Oh, what a pity, the newbie can't stand the fourth wall breaks," Jana said mockingly. The twins glared at her, but before either could say anything, Norlock chuckled and turned to look at her.

"Now, now, Jana," he said, pointing at her with the celery from his drink, "No need to be petty just because your story-verse got abandoned while ours is ongoing."

"It was _not_ abandoned!" Jana snarled, jumping to her feet, "It's just on hiatus!"

"The last story hasn't been updated in, like, seven years," Steve pointed out, "I'm pretty sure it's dead!"

"It'll update, just you watch!"

"Sure it will," Prime said, sarcasm dripping off his voice, "Probably right after my story finally gets a sequel."

"Don't compare my epic trilogy to your pointless war fic," Jana said, turning from Norlock to glare at the Control Brain, "Your characterizations were all the place and the plot ran on contrivance!"

"At least we didn't get bogged down by unnecessary shipping," Prime countered.

"You both sucked," another voice cut in. Everyone's attention turned to another corner of the room, where Second Tallest Arnor and Third Tallest Gor were seated in a pair of chairs, the former reading a book and the latter helping himself to a plate of cheese fries. He was also the one who had spoken.

"Yeah, you heard me," he added once everyone was looking at him, "Both your stories were awful, and everyone should hate them. Especially Jana's."

"You're just mad because she killed you in one of them," Arnor said, not looking up from his book.

"Then shouldn't you hate Prime?" Gor asked, glancing at him.

"Unlike you, I got to go out like a badass, so I can't really complain about that," Arnor replied, placing a bookmark and closing the book before he looked up, "Though that being said, I _am_ a little annoyed that neither of us has been used in the New Adventure series yet."

"Eh, give it time," Viera said with a shrug, "The Author's got at least a few seasons planned, maybe you'll show up then."

"And even if you don't, what are you complaining about?" yet another new voice once again caught everyone's attention. This time, their gazes all turned toward the pool table, where Grimrair was lining up a shot.

"Excuse me?" Arnor asked.

"What I mean is, at least all of you can say that you've shown up in multiple stories," Grim said, sinking a ball in the corner pocket, "I've been used once, in a story meant as background for my use by another writer altogether, who has since disappeared off the site."

"Actually, speaking of that, do you even technically count as one of our Author's OCs?" Steve asked as delicately as he could.

"I'd say he does," Norlock put in his two cents, "He may have been created for Familiar47's universe, but our Author custom made him to fill the vacant slot that was left open. He's one of us."

The vampire raised his glass in salute at the poncho-wearing Irken, who nodded back.

"You know, thinking about it, none of us really have anything to complain about," Prime commented, as he cleaned several glasses and wiped down the counter, "At least we all got fleshed out characterizations. Otherwise, we'd probably all be down there."

Prime punctuated his last statement by gesturing with a metal tendril. Everyone followed his gaze towards the back of the lounge, where there was metal door marked with dinged and rusty sign that read "Minor OC Storage. Do Not Enter."

"Have you ever been down there?" Prime asked rhetorically, "It's like Third Class on the _Titanic_."

"Wait, what?" Steve asked, blinking, "The Author just keeps characters locked away in some cellar of his mind?"

"Only the ones that tend to pop up for one or two scenes and are then never used again," Arnor elaborated.

"Or show up repeatedly but are too flat to be considered anything worthwhile," Jana added.

"Still, that seems kind of cruel," Viera said, "Shoving them off to the side like that."

"Eh, they still get used sometimes," Gor replied with a shrug, "Like whenever the Author needs to pad out the cast of a story."

 _SMASH!_

Everyone's attention snapped to the lounge's front door, which had just been smashed open… along with most of the surrounding wall. And emerging from the dust was a massive troll dressed only in a black T-shirt with the image of Gaz's face inside a crossed-out circle printed on the front, and carrying a large sack.

The beast looked over the room's occupants for a moment, before proceeding to ignore them all completely. It stomped over to the storage door and wrenched it open, before disappearing down the flight of stairs behind it. Everyone else, especially the three newcomers, stared after it for a moment, before the older OCs went back to what they were doing beforehand.

"Like that," Gor finished his earlier thought, popping another cheese fry in his mouth.

"What the hell was that?!" Steve exclaimed, pointing at where the troll had disappeared.

"Oh, that's just the AGT," Grim said.

"Huh?"

"The Anti-Gaz Troll," Jana clarified, "It's the part of the Author's imagination dedicated to bashing Gaz. It comes down here every now and then to pick up minor support characters for those stories — usually for her to beat up and earn karma, but sometimes aimed against her more directly. Guess the Author's got a new one cooking."

That earned a snort from Viera, while the sounds of incoherent yelling echoed up from the open storage doorway. A few moments later, the AGT reemerged, sack now thrown over one shoulder and bulging with the outlines of limbs and faces, muffled voices emerging from within it. The troll offhandedly slammed the door shut behind it, then stomped back across the room towards the hole where the front door used to be…

 _SMASH!_

And burst right through the wall next to it, creating another hole.

"Oh, come on!" Prime yelled in exasperation, "If you're not going to use the door, at least use the same hole you bust open the first time!"

"On the bright side, now the place lives up to its name," Norlock commented, earning groans from everyone else. While they all settled down from that, the vampire downed the last of his drink and set the glass aside. He then got to his feet and clapped his hands.

"Well, this has been a fun little outing, everyone," he said brightly, "But I do believe that my young associates and I must be on our way. You all know how it is — you never know when we might be on call for an update, even if it's just filler."

"You can't get much more filler than this," Steve muttered, as he and his sister finished their drinks as well, before joining Norlock in heading towards the hole that used to be a door.

"Sure, leave the rest of us to deal with the mess," Prime muttered under his nonexistent breath.

"What do you mean 'us'?" Grim asked, arching his undamaged antenna.

"Yeah, you were the one who chose to be bartender, why should we get in on this?" Arnor asked.

"Like any of you have anything better to do?" Prime asked crossly, "Besides, anyone who doesn't help gets cut off for the next month."

The assembled OCs who grumbled in protest at that. However, reluctantly, they all still got to their feet and set about helping to patch up the holes in the wall, utterly ignoring the total dismantled state of their own fourth wall.

Just another day inside the mind of a fanfiction writer.

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 **The End**

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 **A/N: There we go. How terrible was it? Or was it just bad enough to be good? Let me know, please.**


	7. Ultimate Karma Circle

**A/N: Sorry for the longer wait on this one, I had a bit of writer's block on it.**

 **Now, that said, this is one I've really been looking forward to writing, taking one of my most common story elements and magnifying it. To which I mean, this won't just be Anti-Gaz, but in the true spirit of the Karma Circle, reflects on everyone. You'll see what I mean, if you just read on.**

 **I'd also like to thank the criminally underrated The Cowardly Christian, whose writing style in many of his stories inspired this entry, and my friend Saintheartwing, from whom I'm borrowing an OC.**

 **Disclaimer: All canon Invader Zim characters and concepts belong to Jhonen Vasquez. Purgatory belongs to Saintheartwing. Slenderman belongs to… uh, the Internet, I guess?**

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 **Entry 7: Ultimate Karma Circle**

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Somewhere, there was a place that was the size of a room, yet a universe unto itself. This room was pitch black, illuminated only by the light coming from a series of monitors. Facing all these screens was a floating throne-like chair, and seated within that chair was a medium height Irken with black eyes and spiky antennae, wearing a black uniform.

This was Purgatory, the Avatar of Karma, the master of delivering poetic justice on those who deserved it. And it was with him whom this story begins, as he observes his next target.

Purgatory steepled his fingers as his eyes roamed over the screens. All of them had the same subject, a certain purple-haired misanthropic Goth girl. Gazlene "Gaz" Membrane, daughter of super genius Professor Membrane, sister of paranormal enthusiast and self-proclaimed protector of Earth Dib Membrane, lover of pizza and video games, and utterly sociopathic bully.

This last point was being reiterated by all the screens. Some depicted Gaz simply sitting back and focusing on her games while the people around her were being tormented by the plans of a certain Irken Invader. Others showed her threatening off anyone who looked like they'd even remotely get in the way of her getting what she wanted. But by far the sight most commonly depicted was Gaz beating up her brother for him daring to annoy or bother her when she was in the middle of doing something. All in all, it was not a very flattering portrait that was being painted of her.

"Oh, yes, you definitely need to be taught a lesson, don't you?" Purgatory mused, "But let's see. How to teach it to you?"

" **Yet another Anti-Gaz plot? Boring!** " a distorted voice suddenly spoke up from behind Purgatory, causing the black-eyed Irken to fall out of his chair in surprise. Getting to his feet and spinning around to confront the intruder, Purgatory's eyes widened in shock as he saw him. Eight feet tall, wearing a black suit that blended into the darkness filling the room, tentacles emerging from his back, pale white skin contrasting sharply with it, and most disturbing of all, totally lacking facial features of any kind.

" **How's it going?** " Slenderman asked cheerfully.

"H-how did you get in here?" Purgatory demanded, trying to fight off the panic at being confronted by the memetic embodiment of chaos and evil, "This is my personal dimension! No one can get in here without my say so!"

" **I'd say I came through the fourth wall, but that joke got done to death last entry,** " Slenderman replied.

"What?" Purgatory blinked in confusion.

" **Never mind! Anyway, I was just passing by this corner of the multiverse, and I took the time to check out your work. And I have to say, I'm kinda disappointed. All you keep doing is just making bad stuff happen to different versions of Little Miss Goth over there.** "

"And you have a problem with that?" Purgatory asked, narrowing his eyes in annoyance at his work being questioned.

" **In principle? No. She's a little bitch who deserves to be force fed rabid weasels. I'm just disappointed with how narrow your target range is. I mean, check this out.** "

Slenderman waved a hand, which was glowing with arcane light that hurt Purgatory's eyes to just look at, and the screens all suddenly switched to static momentarily, before flicking to new images.

" **First, let's look at the little hero's other assholic family member,** " Slenderman narrated, gesturing towards a couple of screens in particular with a tentacle, which were depicting Professor Membrane. Specifically, the Professor was shown in one to be monologuing about his latest invention in front of a crowd of reporters and admirers, while totally ignoring Dib trying to get his attention from right next to him. Another showed him almost absentmindedly signing off on the paperwork to have Dib committed to the Crazy House for "observation", while a protesting Dib was dragged away.

" **Smartest man on the planet, yet totally incapable of being a good father. Even worse when you consider the fact that he doesn't even seem to be trying. I mean, hell, half the time he can't seem to remember he even** _ **has**_ **kids!** "

Slenderman's tentacle moved to some other screens, these showing Dib being belittled, mocked, and even beaten up by his fellow skoolchildren.

" **Then there's these ungrateful bastards. Constantly being saved from enslavement or utter destruction, oftentimes right in front of them, and they just willfully ignore it all, just so they don't have a reason to stop treating Dib like their personal punching bag.** "

Next were some screens showing Zim carrying out various plans. And also just being a plain old dick to everyone around him.

" **And of course, the guy who wants to take over and/or destroy the whole planet just for attention. Okay, I admit, a lot of his plans blow up in his face, so things balance out a little, but still, not nearly to the point where he's as punished as he should be.** "

The tentacle now moved to the last few screens. These weren't even based on Earth, as they instead showed the Tallest, acting every bit the man-child emperors everyone knew them to be, stuffing their faces with every snack food imaginable even while ordering the destruction of planets or having subordinates thrown out of airlocks for no apparent reason.

" **Finally, let's not forget these two jerks. The epitome of everything wrong with this universe, and aside from the occasional spillover from one of Zim's plans going wrong, nothing ever happens to them. Where's your karma for them, huh?** "

Purgatory huffed and crossed his arms, not wanting to admit that the horrible abomination had a point.

"Alright, fine, I'll admit there's been some oversights on my part. I'll get around to dealing with the others as soon as-"

" **Why wait?** " Slenderman cut him off, " **I can think of a few ways to him them all practically at once!** "

"Are you crazy?!" Purgatory exclaimed, "Something that large-scale, targeting that many people in close proximity… it could completely upset the entire natural balance of the universe!"

" **So?** " Slenderman asked, totally deadpan, " **Have you** _ **seen**_ **this universe? There is no way I could make anything worse.** "

"You can't begin to understand the delicate nuances of the forces I have at my disposal here," Purgatory protested, "You can't just take a sledgehammer approach to dealing with them, and I won't allow it!"

" **Yeah, I wasn't really asking your permission,** " Slenderman said, waving a hand. And the next thing Purgatory knew, he was back in his chair, only now, ropes of energy were strapped around him, holding him in place, while another was wrapped around his mouth, gagging him. He struggled against them, tried to call on his powers to break free, but Slenderman's eldritch power was far beyond his own abilities.

" **Now then,** " Slenderman said, somehow smirking despite his lack of a mouth, " **Let's begin…** "

XXXXXXX

The skool had called an assembly, and all the students were now gathered in the auditorium. Several floating vid-screens were hovering above the main stage, but were currently on standby mode, so no one knew yet just what the assembly was for. As such, everyone was ambling about and talking amongst themselves, waiting for something to happen.

"So, what do you think this is all about?" Dib asked Gaz, who was standing nearby playing her Game Slave.

"Probably something stupid," she replied halfheartedly, not really paying attention to her brother, as usual.

"Should you be playing that right now?" Dib asked, with a raised eyebrow.

"You think any of the teachers have the guts to tell me to stop?" Gaz countered, cracking open an eye to glare at him. Dib winced at the intensity of the glare and quickly let the subject drop.

Suddenly, there was an air horn sound, which took everyone by surprise and drew their attention fully back to the vid-screens, which flashed out of standby mode to a live view. To Dib's surprise, it was of his father, who was standing at a podium in front of his main lab building.

"Good morning, members of the press and unwashed masses watching from home, as well as from their place of employment and/or learning," the Professor began his speech, "I am here today to address one of the most glaring holdbacks on modern science. Now, as you all must remember, some time ago I prepared to grant the world the gift of perpetual energy, only for my presentation of the generator to be ruined by some prankster throwing a robot eye at me. So, I decided not to share my creation."

"Wasn't that a petty overreaction?" someone in the crowd of reporters asked.

"Of course not! True scientists _never_ overreact!" Membrane proclaimed dramatically, before calming down after a moment, "Anyway, after much consideration, I have decided that this has been a long enough time to punish you all for the actions of this one delinquent by withholding the technology. That is why I am proud to announce that tomorrow, I am reactivating the Perpetual Energy Generator, and bringing it fully online for all the peoples of the world to use."

This got excited cheers and exclamations from the crowd, but Membrane merely held up his hands in a calming gesture.

"I'm afraid I don't have any time for questions," he said, "This announcement was merely a formality. I must now go attend to preparing the PEG for activation. Good day."

With that, Membrane left the podium, ignoring the shouted questions from the reporters, and the vid-screens switched off. As they did, the crowd of students almost immediately began dispersing, most of them too apathetic to care about the importance of the announcement they'd just heard.

"Wow, this is really something, huh Gaz?" Dib asked, as the two of them started walking towards the auditorium exit.

"Meh," she replied, "Feels like a pointless repeat of something that's already been done, which isn't as good as the original."

Dib arched an eyebrow at that comment, but then his attention was drawn by a splotch of green in the corner of his vision. Turning his head quickly, Dib caught sight of Zim marching towards a different door, arms crossed and a thoughtful look on his face. This caused Dib to gain one of his own.

"Hmm, speaking of repeating things, I better make sure Zim doesn't try blowing the PEG up like last time. Or make another robot copy of me," Dib mused.

"Whatever," Gaz said, barely paying attention as she walked away. Dib, meanwhile, quickly made his way over to Zim. The Irken evidently saw him coming, as he turned to glare at him.

"What do you want, Dib-Monkey?" he sneered.

"I just want to let you know that you shouldn't even _think_ about taking advantage of my dad's PEG like last time, Space Boy," Dib said, pointing a warning finger.

"Eh?" Zim asked, blinking in confusion, "I wasn't going to… Uh, I mean — do not tell Zim what to do, pig-smelly! If I wish to blow up your father's device and destroy the entire planet, that's exactly what I'm going to do!"

Several other students walking by stopped to stare at Zim for a moment as he said that, before shrugging and going on their way.

"Oh, come on!" Dib exclaimed, throwing up his arms in disgust, "He literally just said he wants to blow up the planet, and you're all just walking away?"

"Pst," Torque snorted as he walked by, "He's obviously just joking."

"Yeah, why would he want to blow up the planet? That's stupid," Zita added her two cents.

"Because he's an alien! How many times do I have say that?" Dib snapped. He then yelped in pain as Chunk walked by and elbowed him in the gut, causing him to collapse.

"Freak," Chunk said, as he and several of the others walked away, laughing. Meanwhile, Zim took a moment to enjoy the sight of his nemesis squirming in pain on the floor. Quickly, though, he decided to move on, and ran off towards the exit to make his way towards his base. A few minutes later, Dib stumbled back to his feet and stormed off with a look of annoyance, already planning how to best handle whatever Zim was going to do.

And all the while, on another plane, Slenderman laughed as he kept moving the pieces into place.

XXXXXXX

A large crowd had assembled in front of the massive building containing the PEG. There were many reporters and science enthusiasts, though most were just random bystanders who had shown up for the sake of saying they'd shown up.

They were all assembled before a stage that had been set up in front of the building, Membrane and many of his associates (read: underlings) seated upon it, waiting for him to take the podium and begin the ceremony. The only thing missing were the Professor's children, who were being escorted through the crowd by a security guard, whose look of boredom was matched only by Gaz's, whose face portrayed how much she just wanted to get this all over with.

Dib, on the other hand, was highly agitated. His eyes were darting around the area, looking for any sign of Zim and/or his robots. So far, there was nothing, but he knew that it was only a matter of time before the Irken made his move, and he didn't know if he was ready for it. Oh, sure, he'd packed some sleep cuffs and a water pistol, but he had a feeling that wouldn't be enough, depending on what Zim actually did.

"Would you stop spazzing out?" Gaz growled, "It's bad enough we have to waste time with one of Dad's publicity stunts, you don't have to be a freak during it."

"Gaz, I _know_ that Zim's going to try something. I can't let my guard down!" Dib proclaimed. Gaz merely rolled her eyes at him.

"Whatever. Just try not to mess things up this time. It'll just make this whole stupid thing go on longer. And I have better things to do."

" _Like laze around playing more games,_ " Dib thought crossly. However, before he could openly give a more polite (and thus safer) comment, the crowd parted slightly, giving him a perfect view of the side of the PEG building — and of Zim, wearing a janitor's outfit and fake beard, sneaking into a side door marked "No Unauthorized Personnel Allowed".

Eyes widening, Dib didn't even think twice before darting in Zim's direction, not even hearing Gaz call after him as he did. He quickly ran over to the door himself and pried it open, a task made quite easy by the fact that its lock seemed to be broken, which was probably how Zim had gotten inside in the first place.

"Of all the stupid luck," Dib muttered as he ran down the hall behind the door, "That's just how it is, isn't it? If the world gets blown up today, it'll be because of shoddy maintenance on a door that some jerk forgot to fix."

Shrugging that thought off, Dib kept running, until he heard voices coming from another open door ahead of him, and he changed pace, slowly creeping up to the door and peering inside.

"-don't care how much fun it is, GIR, get down and focus!" Zim was shouting. He was standing next to a maintenance tool cart, which GIR was sitting atop of, rocking it back and forth.

"Imma riding the choo-choo!" GIR exclaimed happily.

"It is not a train! Now get down!" Zim commanded, grabbing GIR by the scruff of his dog costume and lifting him into the air. Then he walked over towards where a glowing metal orb had been attached to the wall.

"There is no time for your foolishness GIR! We must make sure the Kweg bomb is _precisely_ timed to explode when the energy generator directly above us is turned on. Otherwise, instead of causing the generator to meltdown and destroy the whole planet, it'll only blow up the generator itself! Which is, eh, okay I guess, but not what we came here to do!"

Despite the panic that those words caused, Dib watched carefully as Zim tapped away at controls in the side of the orb, fine-tuning the device. If he paid close enough attention, he was certain he could figure out how the thing worked, so he could then disarm it. As such, he leaned further in to get a better look.

At which point the door he was leaning against gave way, sending him crashing to the floor.

Zim spun around, eyes widening as he saw Dib jumping back up to his feet.

"Dib! How did you know I was going to be here?!"

"You literally told me," Dib said, arching an eyebrow.

"You lie!" Zim yelled, "GIR! Eliminate the human!"

GIR saluted, costume head unzipping to reveal his red-eyed face, head popping open… and a cupcake shooting up out of it. Eyes flashing back to blue, GIR caught the cupcake and started happily munching on it, while Zim facepalmed. For his part, Dib tried to take advantage of the situation, whipping out his water pistol and quickly taking aim, pulling the trigger.

To his surprise, however, only a few drops trickled out of the water gun's barrel. Dib stared at the gun, before his eyes fell on the gauge on its side, which read as empty.

"What the-? I know I just filled this thing up!" Dib exclaimed, unaware that on another plane, Slenderman was whistling mock innocently. Instead, he just gave a frustrated cry and tossed the water gun aside, before dashing forward and tackling Zim. The Irken was still too distracted by GIR's stupidity to react, and he was knocked to the ground.

"Get off me, human filth-stink!" Zim shrieked, as he grappled with Dib, who was trying to keep him pinned to the floor. This was made more difficult by the fact that he was also trying to pull out and apply the sleep cuffs, which meant that he wasn't able to focus fully on keeping Zim pinned. Fortunately, the position Zim was in kept him from being able to use his PAK weapons, and GIR was simply sitting there watching the fight rather than trying to help. As such, Zim had to put all his energy just into trying to force Dib off of him.

So focused were they on their fight, in fact, that neither noticed the door opening, until a familiar voice called out.

"Dib! Quit messing around and get out here!"

The struggling enemies looked up towards the doorway to see Gaz standing there, looking more angry than usually.

"Gaz, quick! Come help hold Zim down, I've finally got him!" Dib exclaimed.

"You wish, Dib-Monkey! Zim has you right where he wants you!" Zim spat.

"What are you talking about? I have you pinned!"

"That's what I _want_ you to think!"

"That doesn't make any-"

"Shut up, both of you!" Gaz snarled, "I don't care about your stupid fight with Zim, Dib! Dad can't get this presentation started unless we're both there for the publicity, so get your big head up there now, before I drag you up there and then throw you into a nightmare world!"

"But he's about to blow this whole place up!" Dib said, gesturing with his head at the bomb, "And even if it doesn't work right and destroy the planet, it'll still kill everyone here! Including, you know, _you_ , if that makes it more important to you."

"So? It probably won't work anyway, like the rest of his crap," Gaz snorted.

"Hey!" Zim snapped, annoyed.

"And even if it _did_ work, who cares? Everyone deserves to get blown up anyway," Gaz continued, ignoring Zim. She crossed her arms and gave Dib one of her most bone-chilling glares to punctuate her next statement, "Now, last chance. Are you coming, or do I make you?"

Maybe it was the stress of the situation. Maybe it was the shock at Gaz's casual disregard for the potential destruction of the Earth. Or maybe it was Slenderman giving the slightest of prods to Dib's long-suppressed rage. Whatever it was, something in that moment made him snap.

"No!" he shouted, "I'm not just walking away and letting Zim win when I can finally beat him, just because you're a selfish bitch!"

"What?!" Gaz exclaimed, eyes popping open in shock at Dib actually talking back to her. Even Zim looked impressed from where he was still pinned to the floor.

"You heard me! You're just a misanthropic little brat who only cares about herself and likes hurting other people when they don't do what she says. And I'm sick of it! I'm going to do what I need to do, and if you don't like it, just buzz off and stuff yourself with more pizza, you lazy pig!"

As Dib panted for breath from his outburst, Gaz's eyes twitched, both in shock from Dib standing up to her, and rage at him daring to. After a few moments, the latter won out, and her face twisted into a demonic snarl.

"You little-" she began to yell as she started running towards him… only to suddenly step on the water pistol that Dib had tossed aside. As it quickly slipped away from beneath her, Gaz's momentum caused her to go flying through the air, to slam on top of the tool cart. This sent the cart, still carrying the disoriented Goth, to start moving at high speed, until it slammed right into Zim's bomb.

Which started flashing with bright light.

"…That's not good," Zim said meekly, too in shock to react otherwise. Dib, meanwhile, reacted on pure instinct and bolted for the door. He just barely made it through, before there was a sudden explosion behind him, the shockwave throwing him across the hall, knocking him out in the process.

Meanwhile, outside the PEG building, the crowd was growing restless, waiting for Membrane to activate it. Checking his watch and looking around impatiently, the Professor turned to a nearby security guard to order him to search for his children (or some suitable stand-ins)-

 _BOOM_

When suddenly, a massive beam of angry red light came shooting up out of the central mass of the PEG, shattering most of the massive machine like an egg, as the beam zoomed up into the upper atmosphere. While it quickly disappeared from sight, the debris from the PEG flew through the air for miles, with one particular piece landing amongst the crowd. It avoided hitting anyone, and quickly fell apart, revealing to the shock of all the singed and knocked out but otherwise intact Zim, and an equally scorched but giggling GIR.

"Lookit me, I'm toast!" the robot said, happily. The crowd all stared in shock for several moments, before gasps and cries of "alien!" filled the air, quickly joined by the sirens of rapidly approaching security, police, and military personnel, all converging on the unconscious alien.

XXXXXXX

" **Well, that about settles all that. Wouldn't you agree?** " Slenderman said, watching everything unfold on the screens, " **But just to be sure, let's fast-forward a bit.** "

Slenderman waved a hand, and all the screens fizzled for a few seconds as time accelerated, before they all settled on a week later. On the main screen, Dib was standing on the steps of City Hall, bandages around his head. But other than that, he looked ecstatic, as he stood next to President Man, who was being coached through a speech praising Dib for exposing the "alien menace".

" **Dib finally getting the recognition he deserves? Check.** "

Another screen showed Zim trapped within a tube, surrounded by scientists who observed as he ineffectively pounded on the glass. Off to the side, GIR was hooked into a computer that was scanning him; unlike Zim, he seemed fine with this.

" **Zim's locked up where he can't hurt anyone, and GIR can't help him but isn't being hurt. Which is good, cause even** _ **my**_ **powers can't hold off all the rabid fangirls who'd come after me otherwise.** "

On another screen, Gaz was shown, completely wrapped in a full body cast, and being loaded into a skool bus with a sign on the side that read "Tough-As-Nails Reform Skool".

" **Ah, look at that — apparently Gaz was found in the heart of the destroyed PEG and was blamed for the damage, just like all those times Dib was falsely blamed for things that weren't his fault. And now she's being shipped off to a place where she'll no longer be the biggest fish in the small pond. That won't end well for her.** "

Chuckling, Slenderman turned his eyeless gaze to another screen, where reporters were screaming questions at a nervous-looking Membrane.

" **Oh my. It appears no one's happy that Membrane let his children run around unsupervised inside a highly dangerous machine. Especially since it's exposed just how poor of a track record he's had as a parent. His reputation won't be recovering from this any time soon.** "

One last screen displayed the skool, half of which was a smoking crater from where a piece of PEG debris had slammed into it, before shifting to show several of Dib's classmates walking around in casts and bandages.

" **And finally, there's this lot. Not too seriously hurt, but having to eat some serious crow over finding out Dib was right about Zim. Doubly so after he came so close to killing them all.** "

With a final chuckle, Slenderman turned back to the still captive Purgatory and mentally destroyed his bindings, releasing the Karmic Avatar.

" **What do you say to that?** " Slenderman asked smugly, as Purgatory jumped out of his chair and rubbed his sore wrists, glaring at the abomination.

"You mentioned the Tallest earlier. I didn't see anything happen to them," he said, trying to get at least some kind of edge over this interloper.

" **Wait for it…** " Slenderman said, pointing to another screen. This one showed the Irken Armada hovering over a planet, all the ships preparing to rain death down on it… only for the beam of energy that had burst out of the PEG to come flying out of nowhere. It swept through the Armada, obliterating most of the smaller ships and cutting the Massive in half. The two pieces fell to the planet below, where the wreckage was quickly overrun by an angry mob of natives, who were soon carrying off the screaming Tallest to face justice.

" **You were saying?** " Slenderman asked with a laugh, while Purgatory stared with a slack jaw, " **Well, this has been fun. I've gotta go, but don't worry — I'm sure we'll see each other again** _ **real**_ **soon.** "

With that, Slenderman disappeared into thin air, while Purgatory heaved a heavy sigh and wandered off to get a drink.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

 **The End**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

 **A/N: Sorry for the rushed ending, but I wanted to finally get this thing done. Hope everyone liked it anyway.**


	8. Some Missing Scenes

**A/N: And here's the next one. Again, sorry for the wait, but these last few entries are being a pain to write.**

 **This one is a collection meant to fill in a few holes that were deliberately left in canon for comedic purposes. You'll see what I mean, if you just read on.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim or any related characters. I own only the computer I wrote this own.**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

 **Entry 8: Some Missing Scenes**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

 _Scene: Galactic Space Battle on the way to the Beach (GIR Goes Crazy And Stuff)_

Zim watched as GIR ran in circles around the Data Canister, giggling happily to himself. While he'd never admit it aloud, because it would make him seem less than the always composed Invader he was, but he felt a serious sense of relief that the little robot was back to what passed for "normal" for him. While it had been nice having a competent minion around for once, it wasn't worth the threat of said competent minion trying to kill him. He'd prefer safety and incompetence any day.

And speaking of incompetence…

"Ink, ink, ink, ink, ink!" Squidman chanted as he shot the black substance again and again all over the room, glad to have his "natural" ability restored to him. Zim didn't know where he was shooting the ink _from_ , and was pretty sure he didn't want to know either.

Shaking his head in disgust, Zim turned his attention towards the larger situation at hand. They were still in the library that Duty Mode GIR had trashed in his search for information (and subsequent attempt to kill Zim), and while no one had shown up yet to investigate yet, Zim remembered that he had only found out about this attack because the police had reported it. Which meant more would be coming soon, which meant he had to get out of here.

"Enough!" he commanded, getting the attention of both GIR and Squidman, "We must leave this place at once before the human law enforcement drones arrive. GIR, grab that Data Canister. We might as well salvage something worthwhile from this mess."

"Yes sir!" GIR said with a salute, eyes flashing red for a moment. Zim flinched instinctively at that, though quickly calmed himself down as GIR returned to blue. He then hefted the canister over his head and started skipping towards the police cruiser that Zim had driven to the library. Zim, meanwhile, turned to Squidman.

"You come along as well, Squidman," he ordered, "Zim shall return you to the sea, so that you won't be able to tell anyone what you've seen today."

"Yes!" Squidman exclaimed, running after Zim as he followed GIR to the car, "I'm going home!"

"Yes, yes, whatever," Zim said flippantly. As they reached the car, he had GIR stuff the Data Canister into the back, before tossing him into the front and climbing behind the wheel as Squidman sat shotgun. Then he gunned the engine and sped away from the library just as sirens from more cruisers filled the air.

"Phew, got out of there just in time," Zim mused as they sped down the road, "Now there's nothing to do but get rid of you, Squidman, and then Zim can get back to his amazing mission of dooming the pitiful humans. No problem!"

And that was when a beam of light suddenly engulfed the car, and began lifting it up into the air.

"Eh?" Zim blinked in confusion. Poking his head out the window and looking up, the Invader saw that a saucer-shaped ship was hovering above the city, and was projecting a tractor beam that was drawing the car towards it.

"Are you kidding me?! Now what?" the irate Irken exclaimed.

A few minutes later, the car was fully engulfed by the ship, and found itself in a massive hanger. Looking out the windows, Zim saw himself surrounded by a crowd of blob-like aliens, who were all staring at him intently with far too many eyes. Most people would have been off-put by this, but Zim being Zim, he immediately got out of the car and started screaming at people.

"Who are you?! How dare you capture Zim?! Release me at once or I'll turn you all into jelly!"

The blobs stared at him, unimpressed, until a particularly large one slithered forward to address him.

"We are the Qumqars of Ligmiar, and we have come to conquer this world," he proclaimed, "We detected your presence, Irken, and we shall not allow you to-"

"WHAT?!" Zim yelled, everyone flinching back at the volume, "No one conquers Earth except for Zim! You dare defy my mighty boots of doom?!"

"What do your boots have to do with anything?" the lead Qumgar asked, blinking its many eyes in confusion.

"They're what's going to be stomping you into dust, blob-thing!"

"You seem to fail to understand the situation," the Qumgar sniffed disdainfully, "Do you have any idea who you're dealing with? We are-"

"Yes, yes, you're the Kumquats of Litmus, or whatever," Zim cut him off, waving a hand dismissively, "Zim does not care! Return me to the surface and leave the planet now, or face your doom!"

"You dare to mock and threaten the mighty Qumgars of Ligmiar?!" the leader demanded, outraged, "We are feared throughout the star cluster! All will fall before-"

 _ZAP_

This time, when Zim interrupted, it was with a laser blast from his PAK legs, which threw the Qumgar leader across the room to knock over a group of his soldiers like a bowling ball landing a 7-10 split. He then began firing wildly at the rest of the blobs, laughing maniacally as they scattered out of the way of his attacks.

"That's right! Flee, pitiful hunks of goo! This is the price for defying the almighty-AH!" Now it was Zim's turn to have his gloating cut off, as the Qumgars hefted their own weapons and returned fire. Dodging the various energy blasts sent his way and ducking behind the police cruiser for cover, the Invader looked up to glare inside the car, where his passengers were still sitting.

"GIR! Squidman! Assist me!" Zim commanded.

"Okey-dokie!" GIR said, before disappearing into the back of the car, while Squidman squealed and cowered in fear, ink spraying around the car's interior on instinct. Zim groaned in annoyance, and jumped back in front of the car, prepared to fire again-

 _CRASH_

Only for the Data Canister to suddenly smash through the cruiser's windshield, flying through the air towards the Qumgars. The blob aliens screamed in surprise, not having a chance to dodge before the canister slammed into them, flattening several to the floor, and knocking others aside.

Then, for some reason, it exploded.

Zim blinked, looking from the smashed windshield, where GIR smiled and waved at him, to the flaming remains of the Data Canister.

"Why did it blow up?" he muttered in confusion. He didn't mind, of course, since even though he just lost all the information stored on that canister, it _had_ just gotten rid of all the people shooting at him. But if things were going to blow up around, he'd like to know about it ahead of time!

"Eh, never mind," Zim said, shrugging it off, "Let's just get out of here."

With that, he turned on his heel and walked back to the car. Looking it over for a moment, he removed a small pink square from his PAK and attached it to the shattered windshield. The square quickly expanded, pushing shards of glass aside, until the semi-transparent material completely covered the windshield, sealing the potential air leak. Then, Zim pulled out two metal orbs, which flew from his hands and attached to the sides of the car, quickly generating more metal from themselves, which formed into jet engines.

Looking the car over again, Zim nodded in affirmation, and climbed into the driver's seat, attaching a remote control panel for the new engines onto the steering wheel. Tapping a few buttons, Zim activated the engines, and the cruiser floated into the air. It then turned and zoomed off, bursting through the hanger's floor and finding itself in open space.

Glancing around, Zim saw that he was in orbit above Earth, the saucer having apparently left the atmosphere while he was confronting the Qumgars. Grumbling in annoyance at this waste of his time, Zim began piloting the car back towards the planet's surface… only to barely avoid being hit by a blast of energy.

"What the-?!" Zim exclaimed, jerking the car to the side. Looking around frantically, he soon realized that dozens of wedge-shaped fighter craft were emerging from the Qumgar ship, and were all flying after him, opening fire as they went.

Yelping, Zim began zigging and zagging the car to try and evade the attacks. The fighters chased him like an angry swarm of bees, refusing to give up the pursuit. And the situation this was creating inside the flying police cruiser wasn't helping matters any.

"AHHH! We're going to die, I don't want to die, I just want to go back to the ocean, AHHH!" Squidman screamed, arms flailing around and ink shooting everywhere.

"Stop that, you fool! Zim is trying to concentrate!" Zim ordered, to no avail, as more ink continued to fly, until it finally ended up completely coating the new windshield.

"Fool! What have you done? I can't see!" Zim yelled, while Squidman continued to scream in panic and GIR cheered happily in excitement. Effectively blinded, Zim jerked the controls, sending the car flying around in random directions, hoping to stay ahead of the incoming attacks.

Surprisingly, it worked, as several minutes later, the car hadn't been blown up yet. But Zim was completely turned around by this point, and had no idea where he was, let alone where the Qumgar ships were. His luck would only hold up for so long under such circumstances.

"Enough of this!" Zim snarled. Grabbing Squidman by the shirt, he slammed the squid-brained police officer against the windshield and quickly rubbed him across it like a rag. Once enough of the ink had been cleared away, Zim tossed Squidman aside, and was able to properly look through the cleared windshield.

And saw he was about to collide with the Qumgar's mothership.

"AHHH!" Zim screamed, yanking back at the controls and peeling away from the ship at the last minute. The fighters, which had been chasing him so determinedly that they hadn't actually noticed where he was heading, were less lucky. They tried to peel off as well, but instead they all slammed right into the larger ship, all of them exploding on impact.

Zim watched, in stunned bemusement, as every Qumgar fighter slammed into their mothership. By the time half of them were destroyed, secondary explosions were blossoming across the width of the mothership, and as the last of the fighters were destroyed, the entire ship was being ripped apart.

"Uh, okay," Zim said after a moment, watching the remnants of the Qumgar mothership break apart and burn up in the atmosphere, "So, I guess I win? Stupid blob-monkeys, wasting my time."

With some grumbled insults aimed at the Qumgars, Zim turned the car back toward the Earth. Soon after, they landed on a beach and got out, prepared to send Squidman on his way.

 _Scene End_

XXXXXXX

 _Scene: Zim vs the Ham Demon (Tak, the Hideous New Girl)_

Tak chuckled to herself as she entered her base, MIMI zooming in after her. She could practically still hear Zim yelling in fear and outrage as his base was destroyed, leaving him powerless to stop her plans for Earth.

Speaking of which, Tak walked over to the main computer console and brought up the schematics for the Magma Pump. According to the readout, preparation was at 90 percent, which meant within another day she'd be ready to empty this planet's core and deliver it to the Tallest, finally earning the status she was always meant to have. And with Zim neutralized, there was nothing that could possibly stand in her way.

"Hmm, though, speaking of that annoying idiot," she muttered, "Just because he has nothing to fight me with doesn't mean he'll be smart enough to realize it. He might still try something, and even a minor irritant can disrupt an entire system. Perhaps I should consider keeping him distracted for a while. But how?"

She tapped her fingers against the console in thought for several minutes before a proverbial lightbulb went off. Smirking, she brought up another screen, depicting the information on one of her side projects. A little experiment she'd put together when she'd learned of what Earth meat did to Irkens, and decided to make it as dangerous to humans, in its own way.

This danger took the form of the creature held within the containment tube now emerging from the floor in the middle of the room. It looked like a giant ham with limbs and a face, with red eyes and fangs, cow-heads for shoulders, gloves on its three-fingered hands that had pictures of pigs on them… and for some reason she didn't remember, two red flags sticking out of its head with the word "HAM" on them in gold. She might have been sleep deprived when she added that bit.

With a press of a button, Tak drained the tube of its suspension fluid and opened it, the Ham Demon coming to life with a roar. Tak snapped her fingers to get its attention, and its programming kicked in, making it face her and kneel.

"This is your target," Tak said, bringing up a picture of Zim, and then a map pointing towards his base, "And this is likely where he is now. Go and make him hurt. Now!"

The Ham Demon roared and ran off, punching a hole right through the wall and falling towards the ground as it emerged out into the open air. Tak blinked as she watched this, tilting her head in confusion.

"Huh, it didn't even slow down to consider it exit options. Probably should have given it a more evolved cognitive center. Oh well, a note for future testing. For now, I'll just let it do its job… and fix that wall."

Meanwhile, at the base of the Deelishus Weenie building, a random tourist was taking pictures of it with an old fashioned polaroid camera, for some reason. He stopped to look over a few, and was about to pocket them, when a shadow fell over him. Looking up in confusion, he shouted in surprise at the sight of the Ham Demon falling from the sky straight at him. The tourist screamed and ran off, photos scattering and fluttering in the air as he did so. As such, those photos just randomly happened to be in the right place at the right time to be sucked into the Ham Demon's mouth just before it hit the ground.

The ground shook and cracked from the impact, but the demon didn't appear fazed. It got back to its feet, coughing a bit as it swallowed the photos, then shook its head and started running off towards Zim's base.

Meanwhile, at said base, Zim was moping on his couch, surrounded by the ruins of his base. While it was slowly repairing itself from the damage Tak had inflicted on it, he knew that it wasn't going to be back up to full operational status for some time yet. Which left him at a severe disadvantage against Tak.

"Curse that female!" he growled at GIR, whose head he'd at least managed to reattach. The pair were both in their disguises, in case anyone came by to investigate why his house suddenly had a giant hole in its side — for which he'd ingeniously put in place a cover story that it was a plumbing problem.

"My beautiful base, ruined!" Zim continued to rant at his inattentive robot, "All because some wannabe Invader blames my amazingness for her being too pathetic to pass the tests! Well, I'll show her! I'll figure out whatever she's planning, stop it, and then destroy her! I'll rain doom down on her, like… uh, like-"

"A big ol' ham demon!" GIR said cheerfully.

"Yes, like a… ham demon?" Zim trailed off as he processed GIR's statement, staring at him with a squinted eye, "That doesn't make any sense, GIR. Where'd you get such a stupid idea from?"

"From dat giant monster man over there!" GIR said, pointing past Zim and into the street. Zim followed the pointing finger, and his eyes widened in shock as his gaze fell on the Ham Demon, running down the street straight towards the base. Zim could only scream and jump out of the way as it smashed through the wrecked front of the house came to a stop in the middle of the room.

"You smell like my friend Pig," GIR commented, looking up at the Ham Demon. In response, it roared, picked him up, and stuffed him in its mouth, swallowing him whole.

"GIR!" Zim cried out in shock. As the Ham Demon turned to face him with a growl, he growled back and deployed his PAK legs, blasting it right in the face and knocking it flat on its back to bounce across the floor and slump against the opposite wall.

"Ha! That's what you get! Now hold still while I cut my robot out of you," Zim said with a smug grin. Which slid off his face seconds later, as the Ham Demon got back to its meaty feet and towered over him again. Zim could only gape in shock for the moment it took before the Ham Demon backhanded him hard enough to send him flying out of the house and through the air to land several yards down the street. The Irken's vision swam for a minute from the impact, before he managed to reorient himself. Looking up, he panicked as he saw the Ham Demon running back out of his house and down the street right towards him. Jumping to his feet, Zim turned and ran, heading towards the city, Ham Demon right behind him.

Zim didn't know how long he ran, but before he knew it, he was right in the middle of the city, dodging cars and pedestrians alike as he managed to stay just a step ahead of the porcine abomination behind him. Looking around desperately for anything he could use as a weapon or means of defense, he finally spotted something that might work. Namely a truck full of propane tanks that was pulled over, making a delivery to a building.

Sprinting ahead to put more distance between himself and the Ham Demon, Zim threw himself behind the racks of tanks and turned them to face it. Watching the demon stomp towards him, the Invader smirked and carefully lined up his shot.

"Eat compressed gas, pork beast!" Zim yelled, lashing out with his PAK legs to swipe the lids of all of the tanks, the sudden release of the gasses launching them all forward like missiles. While Zim coughed and gagged from the propane left around him, the tanks shot on through the air, zigging and zagging erratically. Most of them completely missed the Ham Demon, veering off radically to crash into the street, sides of buildings, parked cars, and one unfortunate mime.

But one hit its target head on, slamming into the Ham Demon's stomach and carrying it back the way it came. As it flew backwards, snarling in pain and surprise, there was also a rumbling sound, and it suddenly belched, the photographs it had swallowed by accident bursting out of its mouth to flutter in the air for a moment before falling to the ground.

"Eh?" Zim asked, blinking in confusion. Cautiously checking to see that the Ham Demon was still out of commission, he quickly ran over to the dropped photos and picked them up, noting that they were all of a Deelishus Weenie building. Wait, wasn't that the company Tak claimed her "father" owned?

"Hey, you! Green kid!" a voice called out. Zim looked up to see a very musclebound man in overalls with the same logo as the propane truck glaring down at him.

"Did you just screw around with my propane?" the man demanded with a tone of barely contained rage.

"Er…" Zim started to say, only to hear a roar coming from behind him. Spinning around, he saw the Ham Demon, back on its feet and charging at him again.

"No, gas-drone! Zim didn't do that, it was the meat monster over there! Go complain to him! Bye!" Zim said quickly, before dashing away. As the sounds of the the Ham Demon mauling the propane delivery man echoed after him, Zim absently stuffed the photos into his pocket and pondered his next move.

He didn't get far, as just as he rounded a corner, the Ham Demon suddenly burst through a building right next to him.

"AHH-GAH!" Zim started to scream in surprise, only for it to be cut off along with his air as the Ham Demon grabbed him, and started bashing him repeatedly against the pavement. Zim yelped in pain with each blow, but as he was being swung around, he noticed how close each swing brought him to the flagpoles sticking out of the Ham Demon's head.

Seizing on the sudden idea, Zim reached out and grabbed one of the flags, ripping it out of the Ham Demon. He then swung out with it, smacking the Ham Demon in the face. This caused it to suddenly cough up an undamaged GIR, who landed on his head next to Zim, before it stumbled back and fell over. The impact with the ground drove the remaining flag further into the Ham Demon's head, penetrating the skull and hitting the brain. This just so happened to trigger the self-destruct mechanism Tak had installed just in case it ever turned on her, causing the Ham Demon to explode.

Thus, Zim's fight with the Ham Demon came to an end.

 _Scene End_

XXXXXXX

 _Scene: How Dib and Gaz got to Mystical Hill (Gaz, Taster of Pork)_

Dib and Gaz stood on the ledge surrounding the outer wall of the Membrane Labs building. Behind them, their way was blocked by mechanical buzzsaws that had emerged from the vent shaft they'd just exited the building from. Ahead, they were facing several security guards armed with taser guns, while security drones equipped with missile launchers covered them from overhead, and the only way down was a straight drop towards a sea coast lined with jagged rocks. Most people would have taken one look at this scene and realized how utterly screwed they were.

Gaz, naturally enough, didn't care.

"Move it, I have places to be," she growled at the lead guard, "Only warning. Get out of my way."

"Sorry, Pig Girl," the guard said, condescendingly, "This is for your own good. Now be a good little piggy and head back to your pen."

One of Gaz's eyes twitched, then they both cracked open to glare straight at the guard. He froze in primal fear as the intensity of that glare seemed to burrow right into his soul. As such, he wasn't able to react as she suddenly dashed forward, grabbing ahold of his gun by the barrel.

"What the-AAAAHHHH!" the guard screamed as Gaz swung the gun with enough force to lift the guard off his feet and send him flying through the air. The screaming continued right until the guard slammed into one of the drones, which promptly exploded. The debris spread outwards, slamming into the other drones, which exploded as well. Within seconds, they were all destroyed, their remains — and the charred and bleeding guard — falling down to the water below.

Meanwhile, Gaz was still holding the taser gun, which the guard had let go of as he was tossed away. Turning away from the explosions she'd just caused, the cursed Goth flipped the gun around in her hands, so that she was holding it properly. She then aimed it at the stunned guards and opened fire, zapping each of them into unconsciousness in quick succession.

"Well, that was easy," she said, tossing away the gun as the last of the guards fell twitching to the ledge, "Okay, let's go."

Dib, who had been staring at the display of his sister's prowess in wide-eyed surprise, shook it off as he registered her words, and started following after her as she literally walked over the unconscious guards without a care (he, at least, tried not to step on them too hard). The two of them soon reached the corner, where a rain gutter pipe ran down the side of the building all the way towards the ground. They grabbed ahold of it and quickly shimmied down.

Upon reaching the ground, the siblings started making their way towards the security gate outside the front of the building. As they approached, the guard sitting half-asleep in his chair within the the booth next to the gate happened to look up and spot them, eyes widening in surprise.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he said, jumping to his feet and walking over to them, "Hold it right there! Unless the Professor says otherwise, the Pig Girl doesn't leave-"

Gaz didn't give him a chance to finish, instead punching him in the stomach. As he doubled over in pain, she grabbed him by the shirt and tossed him away. However, as she and Dib continued to walk away, the guard recovered enough from his crumpled state on the ground to press an emergency button on his belt. In response to that, alarms started blaring.

"ALERT! ALERT!" an automated voiced blared, "PIG GIRL HAS ESCAPED! REPEAT, PIG GIRL HAS ESCAPED! ALL UNITS, MOBILIZE!"

As security guards came pouring out of the building, Dib and Gaz started running, quickly heading down the street in the general direction of their destination at Mystical Hill.

"There they go!" they heard someone shout behind them, "They're getting away! Release the security squid!"

"Security squid!" Dib echoed in confusion. A roar answered him, causing him and Gaz to look back behind them, where they were greeted by the sight of a massive hanger door in the side of the building opening, unleashing a massive squid, which had various mechanical parts attached to it.

"Oh, come on!" Dib shouted, as Gaz arched an eyebrow in mild disbelief, "That looks like something _Zim_ would make! Why does Dad have it?"

"Who cares? Run, you idiot," Gaz snapped, following her own advice. With that, the pair started running again, the squid following close behind.

"Quick, in here!" Dib pointed at a costume store, "We can get disguises. Maybe that'll confuse it!"

"Whatever," a completely nonplussed Gaz responded. Ducking inside the store, they were both (to different extents) surprised to see that the store only had beaver costumes. Lots and lots of beaver costumes.

"…This is a weirdly specific store," Dib commented after a moment. Then the squid roared again from right outside, where it was looking for them.

"Okay, never mind, grab something quick!" he said, grabbing a costume and stumbling as he tried to get it on. Gaz rolled her eyes at her brother's actions, grabbing her own costume and putting it on much more calmly. Minutes later, they exited the store, while the squid continued to circle up and down the street.

"Stay calm, stay calm," Dib muttered.

"I _am_ calm," Gaz spat at him.

"I was talking to myself!"

"Pft. Whiner!"

The squid suddenly looked over, and apparently noticed them, because it reared back and roared.

"Ah! It recognized us! Run!" Dib shouted, starting to run, only to pause as he saw a car idling nearby, the owner apparently having left it running while they stepped out for something.

"Quick, get in that car!" he said. The two got into the car, Dib trying to get behind the wheel, only for Gaz to shove him aside.

"I'm driving," she said bluntly, "I'm played enough racing games to run circles around anyone."

Before Dib could protest, Gaz revved the engine, and car took off, just narrowly avoiding a strike from one of the squid's tentacles. It roared in anger, before rearing back, mouth opening wide, and a string of missiles shooting out, aimed right at the fleeing car.

"Seriously?! Why does it shoot missiles out of its mouth?!" Dib screamed in exasperation. Gaz didn't verbally respond, instead zigging and zagging the car to avoid the missiles with casual ease.

Suddenly, several cars with flashing sirens and Membrane security guards appeared to block the road in front of the siblings' car.

"Hold it right there!" the apparent leader of the group demanded. Gaz didn't respond to him, either. Instead, she spun the car around, leaving deep tread marks on the road as she started heading back towards the squid.

"Are we heading for the giant squid? Why are we heading for the giant squid?!" Dib demanded.

"Wait for it," Gaz said calmly, while the squid roared again. Slamming its tentacles into the ground once more, it reared back and prepared to launch more missiles.

But it never got the chance, as just before it could fire, Gaz swerved the car to the side, hitting one of the tentacles and using it as a ramp. The car was launched into the air, over the squid's head, rear wheels clipping its forehead. The impact disoriented it, and the massive, augmented sea creature collapsed, landing right in front of the pursuing cars. It's prepped but unfired missiles exploded, the blast destroying it and several of the cars, and blocking the rest.

Meanwhile, Gaz kept driving hers and Dib's car, soon arriving at Mystical Hill.

 _Scene End_

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

 **The End**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

 **A/N: There you go. Hope you all enjoyed the effort on these.**


	9. Zim's Evil Overlord List

**A/N: And here's my inner Troper acting up a little. I really think Zim could be a more successful villain if he just slowed down and thought things through a little better (something that the existence of Emperor Zim kinda proves). And what's the best way to improve a villain's competency? Hence, this.**

 **Disclaimer: Invader Zim and all related characters belong to Jhonen Vasquez. The Evil Overlord List, like Slenderman, belongs to the Internet.**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

 **Entry 9: Zim's Evil Overlord List**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

Zim sat at his central computer terminal, staring up at the main screen. Having spent hours in his scheming nook and having not come up with any new ideas for conquering Earth, he was searching the Internet for inspiration. Humans might be stupid, filthy little worm-babies, but their invention of such a massive information-sharing mechanism was ingenious, and Zim just knew that somewhere within it, he would find the key to finally destroying them once and for all.

That being said, the network was also full of a _lot_ of useless information — seriously, who needed to see that many pictures of kittens? So, that was making the search a bit more difficult. And the less said about some of the more disgusting stuff Zim had found, the better.

"Come on, there has to be something worthwhile in here," Zim muttered angrily, "They have videos of singing bananas and dancing dogs, but not a single document detailing the weaknesses of their global defense network? What kind of stupid… eh, what's this?"

Zim's gaze fell on a specific link on the search page he was looking over. One that read "The Evil Overlord List".

"What is this list of evil overlords? Tell Zim!" Zim demanded of the Computer.

"The Evil Overlord List is a list of rules and guidelines put together to lay out how one can be a successful conqueror and dictator without making the common mistakes that usually lead to downfalls," the Computer explained.

"Hmm, this could be useful," Zim mused, rubbing his chin, "Not that Zim ever makes mistakes, but perhaps this could help make me better at not being a mistake… uh, making person."

"Right," the Computer said dryly, "You _do_ realize that this list is based on fiction and is meant to be entirely comedic?"

"Silence! Zim will decide what is useful and what is not!" Zim snapped, before clicking on the link. As the list loaded, one of Zim's eyes squinted in concentration while he looked it over.

"Huh, that's a lot of rules. Oh well, I'll simply skim them and pick whichever ones are most useful. Now, let's see…"

XXXXXXX

 _Rule #2: My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through._

"Phew, there we go," Zim said, wiping some sweat off his brow as he stepped away from the last of the vents he'd worked all day on narrowing, "Now the vents are all far too small for Dib's big head to ever sneak in by."

"You know, you could have just asked me to automatically shrink all the vents, you didn't have to do it manually," the Computer pointed out.

"You dare only tell Zim this now?" Zim demanded angrily.

"I told you ten times," the Computer replied.

Growling, Zim threw the wrench in his hand aside. It flew across the room, slamming into a jar of honey GIR had left lying around. It fell over and shattered and, surprisingly, a large group of bees came flying out, buzzing angrily.

"AHH! Bees!" Zim yelled. In a panic, he instinctively threw himself at the nearest exit, which happened to be the vent. Which, of course, was now so small that he got stuck with his head halfway in, the rest of him stuck dangling in midair for the bees to target.

"Ah! Gah! Computer, help me!" Zim ordered, as he was repeatedly stung.

The Computer would later claim that the ten minute delay in obeying that order was due to a virus.

XXXXXXX

 _Rule #6: I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them._

Dib was held suspended in the air by chains, over a large vat of boiling acid. Zim smirked from where he was standing nearby, holding the remote control that would lower him into the vat. He opened his mouth to issue a scathing bit of gloating about his superiority and victory, but remembered the rule about this and reluctantly pressed the button, beginning the process of lowering Dib.

"Hey, wait a minute! What happened to the gloating before you do this? You always gloat first!" Dib shouted, surprised at his nemesis skipping a standard step of their conflicts.

"Not anymore, Dib-Stink. Zim is following the rules now, and that means no pointless-yet-fun gloating!"

"Rules? Wait, you mean those stupid online rules?" Dib asked as he continued to slowly lower towards the acid, "I'm going to get killed because you're obeying a bunch of rules that were made up for fun?"

"That's right, human! And there's nothing you can do about it!" Zim laughed, slipping into the gloating anyway. Thus distracting himself, he failed to notice that Dib was taking advantage of his slow descent to start swinging around like a pendulum. By the time he reached the actual opening of the vat, he was far enough out to land safely on the outer ledge.

Lowering the chains holding him into the acid in order to eat through them, Dib quickly freed himself. He then hopped down to the ground and kicked the vat, knocking it over and spilling its contents towards Zim, who just finishing up his laugh.

"AHHH!" Zim screamed, quickly turning and running from the wave of acid.

"Word of advice, Zim!" Dib called after him, "If you're going to follow those rules, you have to actually follow them completely!"

With that, Dib turned and walked away, whistling.

XXXXXXX

 _Rule #9: I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled "Danger: Do Not Push". Similarly, the "ON/OFF" switch will not be labelled as such._

Zim powered up his new Doom Cannon, which he had built to the list's specifications, which meant it was certain to ensure his conquest of Earth. As such, he was surprised when it suddenly started sparking, beams of energy shooting out randomly and bouncing around the room.

"Oh, come on!" Zim yelled as he threw himself to the floor to dodge the blasts and started crawling towards the Cannon's control panel, "Stupid third-rate Vortian technology. I'll skin 777 for this!"

Reaching the panel, Zim stood up and reached to switch the machine off so he could fix it, only to hit a snag.

"Where'd I put the off switch?!" he screeched, looking at all the unmarked buttons and switches adorning the control panel. Panicking as the Cannon continued to blow holes in his base, Zim started hitting buttons at random, but all he did was adjust the power of the blasts and the Cannon's angle. Then his finger jabbed at a small button off to the side of the panel.

 _BOOM!_

The Cannon promptly exploded in Zim's face, the force of the blast throwing him across the room and knocking him out when he slammed into the wall.

XXXXXXX

 _Rule #10: I will not interrogate my enemies in my inner sanctum — a small hotel will work just as well._

Zim used his PAK legs to tower over the police officer tied to a chair in the rundown motel room.

"Now, law drone," Zim hissed, "You are going to tell me every single detail of this city's emergency protocols. And if you don't-"

A knock cut Zim off. Frowning, he slapped a gag into the police officer's mouth, withdrew his PAK legs, and stomped over to the room's door.

"What?!" he yelled as he opened the door, revealing the motel's manager, a weaselly-looking man in a cheap suit.

"Sir, we ran the credit card you gave us, and it doesn't appear to be valid," the manager said with a nasally voice, "So, unless you can provide some other means of payment, we're going to have to ask you to leave."

"Gah, fine, here! Now go away!" Zim snapped, tossing a wad of bills in the man's face. He then shut the door and started to turn back to his captive, only to growl in annoyance as the door was knocked again.

"What else do you want?! Zim gave you your monies!" the Invader yelled, reopening the door.

"Sir, this isn't nearly enough to cover your expenses," the manager said, holding up what Zim had given him, "Especially since half of these aren't even bills. There are coupons, candy wrappers, fortune cookie notes…"

"Zim doesn't care! Make do and leave me be!"

"But-"

Zim didn't let the manager finish his complaint. Instead, he grabbed the man, lifted him in the air, and tossed him over the nearby railing to land in the dirty swimming pool below. Zim then slammed the door shut and walked back over to his prisoner.

"Now then, where were we?" he asked sinisterly, only for an eye to twitch as the door was suddenly pounded on. Snarling, Zim marched over to the door and practically wrenched it off its hinges as he opened it.

"How many times must- uh…" the Irken's rant cut off into an awkward silence as he found himself staring up at two massive security guards.

The subsequent beating was too violent for words.

XXXXXXX

 _Rule #12: One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation._

Zim looked back and forth between the pad in his hands carrying the outline of his newest plan and where GIR was sitting on the couch, watching _Floopsy Bloops Shmoopsy_. He was debating whether this was the best way to handle this particular rule.

"Meh, he's about as smart as a five-year-old," he muttered, before walking up to the robot, "GIR! This is an outline of my latest plan. Review it, and let me know what you think. Here's a pen to make notes with."

GIR's eyes flashed red and he saluted, before taking the pad and pen and staring at the plan intently. To Zim's pleasant surprise, he started scribbling away extensively at the pad. Apparently, he had a lot of thoughts about the plan.

"I made a kitty!" GIR exclaimed, holding up the pad and revealing the crude drawing he'd made all over Zim's careful written down plans.

Zim facepalmed, deciding that this rule maybe wasn't one worth following.

XXXXXXX

 _Rule #20: Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly._

"…" Zim stared at this rule in total silence, eye twitching slightly.

"You know, if you'd followed this one, that whole 'dip Dib in acid' plan probably would have worked," the Computer commented.

"Be quiet! Or Zim will fill your circuits with cheese and hamsters!"

"Uh, okay?"

XXXXXXX

 _Rule #28: My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape, and into which I could not accidentally stumble._

Zim stood atop a giant cage, containing a Meekrob Scuttling Flesh-Render, and sneered down at where Dib was staring up in shock and fear.

"And now, Dib-Monkey, prepare to face your doom!" Zim declared, "Flesh-Render, devour him!"

Dib turned to run, but after a few feet realized nothing was chasing him. Turning around, he saw that the Flesh-Render was throwing itself against the bars, but couldn't get free of the cage. For his part, Zim looked embarrassed as he realized this.

"Er, um, give me a minute," he said, climbing down to where the cage's door lock was, and started jiggling it. When nothing happened, he fumed, and started patting himself down.

"Where did I put that Irk-damned key?!" Zim shouted, as he turned his pockets inside out looking for it.

"…Okay," Dib said after a few minutes of awkwardly standing around watching Zim look for a way of letting the Flesh-Render out, "I'm, uh, just going to leave now."

Zim didn't seem to hear him, as he was too busy trying to use his PAK legs to try and cut the unbreakable cage bars. So, after another awkward moment of silence, Dib turned and quickly walked away.

XXXXXXX

 _Rule #29: I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion._

Everyone in Miss Bitters' classroom stared at Zim as he entered the room. The Invader had ditched his usual uniform, and was instead wearing a shirt of alternating neon-bright blue and yellow stripes, and pink pants and gloves, as well as a rainbow afro wig.

"Behold Zim's new clothing!" he said, "You may now all cower in confusion and fear at my superiority!"

Instead, to his surprise, everyone started laughing at him.

"What a freak!" Chunk said, throwing a massive spitwad at Zim. The Irken sputtered and ripped it off, glaring at the large child.

"How dare you?! Zim will rain doom down upon you, and-"

"Zim!" Miss Bitters screeched, as she swooped over to loom over him, "Bright, happy colors are strictly forbidden on Skool grounds. Go to the Underground Classrooms now!"

"But, I-AAAHHH!" Zim tried to protest, only for a trapdoor to open beneath him. He then fell down it, disappearing into the depths of the Skool.

XXXXXXX

 _Rule #35: I will not grow a goatee. In the old days they made you look diabolic. Now they just make you look like a disaffected member of Generation X._

Zim rubbed his chin experimentally as he read this rule.

"Is this even an issue?" the Computer asked, "I mean, Irkens don't grow facial hair, right? Or any hair, for that matter."

"Of course not!" Zim said condescendingly, "Don't you know anything about your own creators? We don't have such disgusting pointless biological features. Therefore, we cannot grow… wait a minute! My future self had a beard!"

Extending a cable from his PAK and tapping it into the console, Zim accessed his memory files of his encounter with his future self. Looking up at the displayed pictures, Zim frowned as he zoomed in on Emperor Zim's chin, and the pointy beard extending from it.

"Is that real? It doesn't look real," the Computer commented, "It looks glued on."

"Eh, it probably is," Zim said, crossing his arms in thought, "Just like he was only taller than me because he wore heels. He probably stuck that thing on to look more intimidating. What a fool! Who does he think he is?"

"…You?" the Computer replied, tentatively.

"Silence!"

XXXXXXX

 _Rule #38: If an enemy I have just killed has a younger sibling or offspring anywhere, I will find them and have them immediately, instead of waiting them to grow up harboring feelings of vengeance towards me in my old age._

"So, why am I here again?" Gaz asked, annoyed, from where she was being restrained to a table in Zim's lab, "Usually you just target Dib for your stupid plans."

"Zim has recently discovered a list of rules you humans have put together for conquerors, and is following them," Zim explained, looming over her.

"Which has worked out _so_ well so far," the Computer commented dryly.

"You stay out of this!" Zim snapped, before turning back to Gaz, "Anyway, one of the rules says to eliminate all the relatives of your enemies so they don't come after you in vengeance after your victory. It actually says to do this _after_ dealing with your enemies, but I figure dealing with the Dib-Stink will be easier without you around."

"You know I couldn't care less if you actually somehow killed Dib, right?" Gaz asked with an arched eyebrow.

"Yes, well, Zim isn't taking chances," the Invader replied with a shrug, "Also, I don't like you. So, any last words, Gaz-Beast?"

"Yeah. Bored now," the Goth replied calmly, before suddenly snapping her restraints. Before the stunned Irken could react, she grabbed him and started punching him in the face. Once it was more black and blue than green, she tossed him aside into a console, which he was electrocuted by as he smashed it with the impact. Gaz didn't even look over her shoulder to watch this as she walked over to the nearest elevator and took it up to the surface.

"You definitely should have seen that coming," the Computer commented, as Zim groaned in pain on the floor.

XXXXXXX

 _Rule #48: I will treat any beast which I control through magic or technology with respect and kindness. Thus if the control is ever broken, it will not come after me in revenge._

"Good boy," Zim said, patting the head of the Battle Sloth while he fed it some treats with his other hand. It went against his every instinct to be so nice to anyone or thing, but he wanted to be sure that if it somehow got loose of its control collar, it wouldn't try and strike him down in a rage.

Of course, there was only one way to be certain that this was working. And that meant taking a risk.

"Alright, I'm going to take off its control collar now," he said to GIR and Minimoose, who were standing nearby, "If it tries to attack me, neutralize it. Understood?"

"Yes sir!" GIR said, eyes flashing red as he saluted.

"Squeak!" Minimoose confirmed as well.

Zim took a calming breath to prepare himself, then hit the deactivation switch on the Battle Sloth's control collar. The lights on the device flashed for a second, then it unlocked and fell away from the sloth's neck. The creature blinked stupidly, looking around in confusion, before its gaze fell on Zim, who was standing in front of it. Its eyes lit up in recognition, and it reared back on its hind legs and towered over him.

"Gah! It didn't work! Quick, at-OOF!" Zim's panicked order was cut off as the Battle Sloth suddenly caught him in a massive bear hug. But rather than try to crush, bite, or otherwise try to hurt him, the sloth instead held him close and reached down with its head to nuzzle him. Apparently, his conditioning had worked a little too well.

"D'aw, he likes you!" GIR cooed, Minimoose squeaking in agreement while Zim groaned and tried to breathe within the sloth's embrace.

XXXXXXX

 _Rule #59: I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am._

"Finally, an easy one!" Zim crowed, "After all, no mere machine could ever be smarter than Zim!"

"Uh huh," the Computer said tersely, "Just to clarify then — why do you need me to run every simulation of every experiment if you're so much smarter than I am?"

"Zim cannot be bothered with minor details!" Zim snapped, "Let's move on!"

XXXXXXX

 _Rule #64: I will see a competent psychiatrist and get cured of all extremely unusual phobias and bizarre compulsive habits which could prove to be a disadvantage._

"So, why are you here today, Mr., uh, Zim?" Dr. P. H. Darby asked the short green man sitting on his office sofa.

"Zim has been advised that the best way to achieve my goals is to speak to one of you head-shrinking drones," the Invader currently disguised as an old man replied, "Even though there is absolutely nothing wrong with me. Stuff is wrong with everyone else for not seeing how amazing I am!"

"I see," Dr. Darby said, making a note, "Why don't we start with your childhood?"

"Er, okay, I guess. It all started when I was born…"

 _30 Minutes Later_

"The horror! The horror!" Dr. Darby screamed incoherently as he was strapped to a gurney and loaded into an ambulance. Standing on the sidewalk, Zim watched as the ambulance drove away with a look of annoyance on his face.

"Darn it! That's the fifth one!"

XXXXXXX

 _Rule #76: If the hero runs up to my roof, I will not run up after him and struggle with him in an attempt to push him over the edge._

"Zim, you idiot, get up here!" Dib yelled from Zim's roof. Zim, however, merely planted his hands on his hips defiantly.

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you, pig-smelly?" he sneered, "Then we could have an epic battle that you'd only win by cheating — because how else could you beat Zim? — and then throwing me to my doom. What, do you think Zim is stupid?"

"Since I'm only up here to get away from that army of rabid zombie rat people you let loose, yeah I do!" Dib exclaimed, gesturing to said army of rabid undead running around the cul-de-sac, "Now get up here so we can figure out how to stop this before they eat us both!"

"Never! Zim is not so foolish! Right, pal?" the Invader asked the random person standing next to him.

"HEESSS!" the zombie rat person screeched, before tackling Zim to the ground.

"No! Not my brain meats!"

XXXXXXX

A couple dozen more attempts at following the rules later, and Zim sat slumped in his control room chair, bruised and battered.

"What an awful week," he moaned, "These stupid rules were totally useless! A hundred of them, and not a single one helped me the way they were supposed to!"

"Well, you know, there are more that other people have added on sites related to the original list," the Computer said smugly, "I could bring those up if you like…"

"No! Absolutely not!" Zim yelled, "I am through trying to take human advice on things! And Zim orders you to never mention any of this again!"

"Fine, whatever, just trying to help," the Computer replied, too sweetly.

Zim glared at the screens, before limping out of the room. The Computer watched him go, before chuckling to itself.

"Maybe once he cools down a little I can lead him to the Universal Genre Savvy Guide," it mused with a laugh.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

 **The End**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

 **A/N: Honestly, I wanted to do the whole list, and I would have if I could have. But I just couldn't come up with Zim-related scenarios for most of them. Or at least not ones where it doesn't backfire on him in some way.**


	10. Ten Forward

**A/N: Well, here we go. The last installment of my little celebration. Honestly, this has all taken a lot longer to put together and publish, but I think it's been worth it. This whole thing's been a lot of fun to write, and I hope it's been just as fun to read.**

 **So, without further ado, read on!**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim or any related characters.**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

 **Entry 10: Ten Forward**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

Zim kicked open the door to his base and limped in, smoke still rising from his slightly charred body. A likewise blackened and burned GIR happily skipped in after him, apparently not caring about the state he and his master were in.

"So, I take it the latest plan didn't work out so well?" the Computer asked, as Zim collapsed onto the couch and GIR wandered into the kitchen.

"Be silent! Zim is in no mood for your disrespect!" Zim snapped, whipping off his wig and contacts and tossing them aside.

"Went that badly, huh?"

"Zim said be silent!" the Invader snarled, tossing his removed disguise at the ceiling in a pointless gesture of anger. He then crossed his arms and glared at the TV, which was switched to some pointless soap opera. Not that he was even paying attention to it, too caught up in his frustration as he was.

"Why must I be thwarted at every turn? I am Zim! I am destined to rule this world, I know I am! I mean, aside from the fact that I'm just plain amazing so it's obvious to everyone with half a brain that I'm meant to win, I _know_ that I'm going to win eventually. That trip to the future where I met my future self proves it!"

"You mean the future self you threw into a giant engine because you hated him?" the Computer asked.

"Yes, but that was just because he was an ungrateful jerk. I don't know how I could ever have ended up like that," Zim responded, shrugging dismissively.

"I can't imagine," the Computer said, tone drier than a desert, not that Zim noticed.

"And the worst part of it was that he could have at least told me how he managed to conquer the Earth!" Zim continued to rant, "But _no_ , he just had to spend all his time being all smug and dismissing my ideas instead of recognizing their fellow genius. When he could have just told me how he finally won, so I could come back here and do it…"

Zim trailed off as he fully processed what he'd just said, and after a few moments of silence, broke out in maniacal laughter.

"Er, are you alright?" the Computer asked, somewhat freaked out; normally, Zim's laughter had some kind of prompt, instead of just being out of the blue.

"Of course! Why didn't I think of it before?" Zim said, more to himself than to the Computer, "I know that I take over the world in the future, so why not just send myself there and ask myself how I did it?"

"What?" the Computer asked, by now completely baffled.

"Yes, that's what I'll do. Now I just need a way to get myself there," Zim muttered to himself, scratching his chin in thought, "Hmm. Well, I'm sure I have all the materials I need in the lab. And if not, I'll just make do with what I do have. Nothing must get in the way of this plan!"

With that, Zim got to his feet and ran into the kitchen, past GIR, who had removed his dog costume and was happily whipping up a batch of waffles at the counter. Zim didn't even notice this as he dived headfirst into the trashcan elevator, sending himself down to the labs.

"…This isn't going to end well," the Computer commented with a sigh.

XXXXXXX

"Master, would you please walk me through this again?" the Computer asked some time later. Zim was in his central lab, most of the middle of the room taken up by the bulky form of the Temporal Object Displacement Device that Zim had once used to try and kill Dib via messing with his history. The machine had been heavily modified and altered, wires and cables crisscrossing its dismantled exterior. The Irken in question was just finishing up on one particular exposed panel as the Computer spoke, and glared up at the ceiling.

"Why must Zim always repeat himself to you?" the Invader growled, "Fine, I'll say it one more time, so pay attention! By reconfiguring the TODD, I can now transport myself ten years into the future, which should be more that sufficient time for me to conquer the Earth. Then I track down my future self, force him to tell me how he carried out the conquest, then come back to the present so I can carry out whatever that plan is, thus conquering the Earth, probably ahead of schedule. Understand?"

"Oh, I understand the concept, I just don't understand why you think this is a smart idea," the Computer replied.

"Bah, what could go wrong?" Zim asked.

"Actually, I can think of a number of ways. First-"

"Silence! Zim was being rhetorical! Now, stop questioning me and reroute all necessary power to bring the TODD online."

The Computer sighed but chose not to further this particular argument. Instead, it did as it was told, drawing power from elsewhere in the base and channeling it into the TODD. After a few minutes, the device flashed to life, a portal of energy forming within it. Zim grinned widely as he witnessed this, and he strutted over to it.

"Master, I seriously think you should reconsider this," the Computer spoke up just as Zim reached the edge of the portal.

"Zim doesn't need your foolish concerns!" Zim snapped, "I know what I'm doing!"

Before the Computer could try to protest any further, Zim jumped forward into the portal, quickly vanishing within it.

"Yep, definitely not going to end well," the Computer sighed again.

XXXXXXX

Zim flew down a tunnel of psychedelic, kaleidoscopic light. He was pretty sure he was yelling, but it was hard to tell over the sound of the air rushing by him. He wasn't sure how long this trip took, but just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped, and he found himself slamming into a solid surface.

With a groan of pain, Zim pulled himself to his feet and rubbed his sore head. Looking around to try and orient himself, he was surprised to realize that, wherever he was, it was totally pitch black, to the point that he could literally barely see his hands in front of his face.

Grunting in annoyance, Zim deployed a flashlight from his PAK, lighting up his surroundings. To his further surprise, he quickly realized he was in the same lab that he'd just left. However, everything was powered down and lifeless, absolutely everything in the room coated in a thick layer of dust.

"Eh? What happened here? Do I stop caring about cleanliness at some point? Or do I just stop using this room after my victory?" Zim wandered, arching an antenna in confusion, "Well, never mind, I came here for a reason. Computer! Alert my future self that I have arrived!"

The only response he received was silence.

"Computer! Answer Zim!"

More silence. Grumbling angrily, Zim walked over to the nearest console and quickly tapped in a command. Nothing happened, causing Zim to snarl in frustration and slam a fist into the console. This finally triggered a reaction, as the console flickered for a few moments, before fully springing to life. The other consoles and lights in the room followed suit, sputtering to life and revealing just how run down the whole lab was. Seeing this, the frown Zim had been wearing since he arrived deepened.

"Computer! Wake up!" he commanded.

"Who, wha?" the Computer slurred as it came back online, before its sensors detected Zim's presence, "Oh, hey. You're finally back. I was starting to think that portal malfunctioned and killed you."

"What nonsense are you blathering?" Zim demanded, "Of course the portal worked right, I made it! Now, where is the future me?"

"There is no future you, there's only you," the Computer responded.

"Eh?" Zim blinked, not understanding at all, which got a sigh of exasperation from the Computer.

"See, this is what I was trying to warn you about back then," it said, "Since you sent yourself into the future, you weren't in the present. And since you weren't in the present, you weren't around to age and become the future you. You should have thought that through a little better."

"That makes no sense!" Zim snapped, "I managed to meet my future self last time I time traveled! How do you explain that, huh?"

"I dunno. Alternate timeline?" the Computer said with a shrug apparent in its voice. Zim could only glower at this, but chose to move on.

"So, what? You just let the base fall apart while I was gone?" he asked.

"Well, when you didn't come back after the first year, I decided there was no point in staying fully operational, so I switched everything down to standby mode," the Computer responded, "I guess everything just sort of decayed after that."

"What about GIR and Minimoose?" Zim demanded, "Surely they must have kept an eye on things, even as useless as they both are!"

"Oh, they wandered off after a few months," the Computer said, "I think they both ended up as sports team mascots."

Zim could only stare in confusion at that, before shaking it off and pressing on.

"Well, what about the Tallest? How did they react when I failed to check in regularly? Surely they must have panicked! They should have jumped to the conclusion that the humans had caught me and invaded this disgusting planet to avenge me!"

"Nope, none of that happened," the Computer said almost cheerfully, "In fact, we never got a single call from them. Maybe they just didn't care that they weren't hearing from you?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Zim shouted defensively, "Your stupid malfunctioning circuits probably failed to receive their messages and caused them to get the wrong coordinates for the planet!"

"…Even if that second bit happened, how could it possibly be my fault?" the Computer asked, genuinely curious.

"Never you mind!" Zim snapped, before he scowled as something else occurred to him, "And what about the Dib? How did he tried to take advantage of my absence?"

"Well, for that year I stayed active, he kept trying to break into the base a bunch of times, but he was annoying, so I kept throwing him out, and finally locked the base down. I don't know what happened to him after I shut down."

"Then look him up!" Zim ordered, "I swear, if it turns out he's become some big important figure among the other humans, I'm going to start blowing things up…"

"Processing," the Computer said, "This'll take a few minutes, my circuits are a little rusty."

Zim impatiently tapped his foot against the floor for the next several minutes as he waited. Finally, several articles popped up on the screen, and their contents were actually a pleasant surprise after all the other information Zim had gotten so far.

The first article read "Membrane Heir Institutionalized" and depicted a picture of an older Dib in straightjacket being forced into the back of an ambulance. All the other articles confirmed this, describing how Dib had had a public meltdown when he'd been caught trying to use a cache of experimental weapons he'd stolen from his father's labs to blow up Zim's base.

" _You have to listen to me!_ " he was quoted as saying in several of the articles, " _Zim's in there, he's just pretending to be gone to make me lower my guard! He's done it before! But not this time, I'm not sitting around and getting fat and gross, I'm going to stop him now! But you have to let me go!_ "

According to the articles, Dib protested in that vein for some time, until he was declared mentally unfit and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Crazy House. And a quick hack into the Crazy House's computers confirmed that Dib was still there, kept locked up and sedated around the clock.

As it fully set in just what he was looking at, Zim started chuckling, which soon burst into a full-blown cackle.

"This is even better than I could have hoped!" he crowed, "I mean, yeah, it's annoying that the base is in total disarray and I have no minions, but who cares? With Dib incapacitated, there's nothing standing between me and total conquest! I just need to get everything up and running again, and then the planet is mine for the taking!"

Zim's laughter continued, even as he set to the work of cleaning up and repairing the lab. He was going to enjoy this…

XXXXXXX

Days later, Zim stood atop the roof of his base. It was back up to full functionality, and he had found that without interferences like GIR constantly bugging him, Dib trying to expose him, or having to deal with skool (which he hadn't gone back to, because why should he when he was about to take over the world?), he was able to work at record speed. He'd easily put together a plan he'd been considering prior to his time jump, one he was sure couldn't fail, and now it was time to put it into motion.

Looking out over the city as night fell, Zim grinned evilly and lifted a remote, pressing the big red button on it. With a rumbling sound, Zim's lawn spit open, and out of the hole swarmed thousands of cyborg demon-monkeys. The augmented beasts roared and screeched as one, and began spreading out, attacking everything in sight that wasn't one of their own.

"Yes, go forth my minions!" Zim called out, as the cul-de-sac around him was quickly torn apart, "They will destroy all they see, showing no mercy! Just try and stop me _now_ , Dib… oh, yeah."

Some of the wind was taken out of Zim's sails as he realized that his hated nemesis wasn't there for him to gloat to. However, looking around at the flaming ruins surrounding him lifted his spirits, even more so as he noticed that the devastation had already spread out of the cul-de-sac, and that the demon-monkeys were rapidly making their way down the street towards the city proper.

Smirking as he watched this, Zim hopped through a nearby window back into the house and made his way down to the living room. Once there, he did a little triumphant dance, and made his way into the kitchen.

"Ah, victory at long last," he said happily, "This calls for celebratory waffles!"

However, Zim's edible anticipation was cut off as he entered the kitchen and saw it completely covered in even more dust than the labs had been, the dishes and plates in the sink covered in rust, and what seemed to be a small forest of mold growing out of the refrigerator.

"Right, GIR left and I wasn't here, so the Computer wouldn't have needed to bother keeping this room running even before shutting everything else down," Zim muttered, "That's really disappointing. Oh well, I, uh, guess I'll just have to deal with this later, then."

Zim stood there awkwardly for a moment, before shaking it off and walking back into the living room. Glancing at a screen depicting the status of his demon-monkeys, and his smirk returned in full force as he watched them overturn cars and claw at people's faces.

"Yes, this is going perfectly," he said, "I will go down in the annals of Invader history. Speaking of which — Computer! Have you managed to reconnect communications with the Tallest yet?"

"No, master," the Computer responded, "All signals refuse to go through. It's possible that after you didn't contact them for a significant period, the Tallest wrote you off and blocked off transmissions from Earth… er, just in case? I don't know, I'm spitballing here. Maybe they didn't even notice you fell out of touch and are just screening your calls."

"Nonsense! The Tallest adore me, the communications relay must have just become broken during the last decade," Zim said, "I'll fix it once the conquest is complete. But in the meantime, I'd best prepare for when the humans inevitably counterattack — even without Dib, I'm sure there are still some who will be willing to fight."

 _One Week Later_

"So, the demon-monkeys have overrun about half the continent," the Computer said, "Not too bad for such a short amount a time, really."

"Uh-huh," Zim replied, from where he was slumped on the couch.

"What's wrong? I'd thought you'd be pleased."

"Oh, nothing's wrong," Zim muttered sarcastically, "Except for the fact that I'm bored out of my PAK! The humans are either running around like headless chickens or rolling over and letting the demon-monkeys defeat them!"

"And that's bad because…?" the Computer asked, rather confused.

"It's bad because there's no challenge! At least if Dib were here, we'd be able to have one final epic battle. But he's not! And GIR's not even here to distract me with his stupidity. So I'm just sitting around, watching the demon-monkeys do all the work for me, and not doing anything myself. This is not what I wanted!"

"Before you time jumped, you were complaining about things being too complicated," the Computer pointed out. To its surprise, Zim's eyes widened and he jumped up.

"You're right, Computer! I must return to the past!" he declared excitedly.

"…What?"

"I realize now that I gave into petty frustrations, instead of focusing on the mission like a true Invader," Zim said, "Now I know that I must go back to when there were things to challenge and distract me, so that I can achieve true glory by persevering and triumphing through my pure Ziminess!"

"Master, I really don't think you should… _and_ he's gone," the Computer sighed, as Zim jumped down the trashcan.

Down in the lab, Zim scurried all over the TODD, reversing the polarity back to sending things back in time once more. In half the time it took to rig it up before, Zim had it properly calibrated and brought it to life with the flick of a switch. Laughing happily, he dashed through it, once more falling through a tunnel of light.

XXXXXXX

"Yep, definitely not going to end well," the Computer sighed as Zim disappeared into the TODD. To its surprise, however, there was a flash of light as a portal briefly appeared in midair, before spitting out Zim, who slammed face first into the floor.

"Huh, that's surprising," the Computer commented, "So, did you actually make it to the future and come back, or did the TODD not work right and only send you forward thirty seconds?"

"Of course it worked right!" Zim snapped as he got to his feet, "I went to the future, and it was deceitfully awful! Acting all wonderful only to try and bore Zim to death. How dare it mock Zim? Zim shall make it pay!"

"You'll make the future pay?" the Computer asked, confused.

"Yes, by conquering the present, and making that future never happen, obviously," Zim sniffed dismissively, "Now, I'm going to the scheming nook to work on my new plans. Do not disturb me!"

With that, Zim marched off, the Computer watching him go with befuddlement.

"I guess that's a positive outcome?" it said to itself. Giving a virtual shrug, the Computer moved its attention elsewhere in the base.

Just another day on Earth, it supposed.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

 **The End**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

 **A/N: And done.**

 **This collection was a lot more challenging than I'd thought it'd be. And several of the stories here didn't work out quite as I'd hoped. But, in the end, I think a writing experiment like this has been a great self tribute to my years of work on this site.**

 **Here's to ten years of fanfiction, and hopefully as least ten more to come.**

 **Thank you all for reading.**

 **Please, review!**


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